Fragments of a Totality

Profanity in Art (Something I wrote in college)

2012-02-06T12:00:00.000-08:00

I was searching for something in a drawer at home, when I stumbled upon a bunch of stuff I wrote in college. Some of it I remember very well...others, well...I don't recall that well at all. Some of it was really quite awful. I can't believe I truly thought it was good back then. Some of the stuff that others (other student writers, professors, etc.) thought was good, I didn't think was good anymore. And probably didn't at that time. It's usually the stuff that never found an opinion. Stuff I thought wasn't great, others didn't know what to make of one way or the other - stuff like that is the kind of stuff I look at now and think of as a kind of diamond in the rough. Such as the piece below. I don't recall when I wrote it or where it came from. But it struck me as interesting; personal, when reflective of someone I knew then and don't anymore. It also struck me as a harsh criticism of the person...but also somehow redemptive. And what a sadness. I remember those rooms. I remember those people. It all seems distant memory though. And how confused I thought I was.

Profanity in Art
by Dustin Engstrom
Written circa 2001

He stood in the doorway of my neighbor's apartment; a giant with a red beard and Santa belly, roaring at my comments as if I was an elf who broke a toy. He chewed the glass of his bottle, quaking like a vulture, shooting nasty looks at the girls and boys smoking dope, reading Kerouac, doing nothing, wearing tattered clothes, tattoos of angels, piercing noses and drinking doses of liquor beyond good measure, throwing up their souls in the toilet of his girlfriend who smiled as if she were the host of the President's Ball, touring the rooms of the cave-like residence with a sweeping peacock beauty and restraint.

He told me there was no need for profanity in art. "Fuck, it's ridiculous," he said and lit a cigarette, blowing smoke through his overgrown lips and hair that covered them. He wasn't in the mood to discuss anything of importance for everyone thinks they are an intellectual these days. Nothing is important anymore. All he cared about was music and fucking. Swarming through his words, expressing tenderness in love and slapping his girlfriend on the ass like a hick in a hick bar who only drinks Moose Drool and wears flannels and combat boots, listening to Hank Williams and picking fights with the good looking guy who beat him at pool.

He stood there, alone, sovereign. Almost touching the ceiling and laughing like a parrot whose throat is sore from constantly squawking at his shadow.

I left the room for my own, wanting to masturbate, wanting to get drunk, wanting to fly, wanting to find a girl, a boy, a person, a waking memory, a dream, a spitting image of my youth, wanting to leave, wanting to listen to Ryan Adams and cry, wanting to hold myself in darkness only to find I'm not alone and no one but my shadows leave me. Wanting to know if he felt the same way sometimes. He seemed to be sadder than anyone I had ever known. Or maybe he was right; there's no need for profanity in art. Only pretty words make people wish they'd felt happy.

Like a Pink Parade

2012-02-03T15:39:00.000-08:00

She wore a pink dress. It swam as she moved.

He asked her for her name. She replied that she didn’t know.

She broke into song. “I love the sky! I love the blue!”

He ran his fingers along his eyebrows, as if to smooth them. “Um…” was all he could think to say.

She skipped and danced and fell on the ground.

“Oh…um…”

She eased herself up onto her elbows. She sighed like a tiger after feeding.

He asked her if she was all right. She replied that she didn’t know.

She pretended to be at the bottom of the ocean. Arms and legs out…swim, swim. Swish, swish.

He thought she looked like she couldn’t breathe. He fell to his knees.

She looked up. Still holding her breath, she went red for a long minute, and then exhaled.

“I thought you might be drowning.”

“Oh,” she replied. “No. I can hold my breath under water for a long time.”

“I like your eyes. Can you see under water too?”

“Of course!”

He asked her for her name. She replied that she didn’t know, and then coughed like a seasick monkey.

She smiled at him after a while. He didn’t move.

He asked her for her hand. She gave it to him with glee.

They ate toast with jam and drank tea in the tree of forgetfulness for almost two hours before they fell into an oblivious volcano, which then exploded and they flew into the sky, into the blue.

They swam as they moved. Like a pink parade.

The Letter

2012-01-17T16:25:00.000-08:00

A fragment: The Letter

Dustin Engstrom

January, 2012

I sat alone in a vacant room. That must sound redundant. But there was nothing, not even a chair. One window looked down into the street. A rather nothing street, really. Nothing special about it in one way or another. I saw a dog at one point; make his hound like way down the wet street, wagging his tail in an unseen anticipation of something. But other than that, the room was silent. Almost deafening. I sighed, took a pen from my pocket, and paper, and wrote the following:

“I am not going to see you today. I cannot. Will not. I am here, where I am, and that is all. Goodbye. Do not try to find me.”

I thought about how to sign my name. But then thought better of it. She would know well enough who I am and what I mean. I folded the sheet together in my hand, and opened the latch on the window. Pushing it open, I could feel the freshness of the air, smell the scents of the city, and hear the noises too, like bleats and stops. Taking a deep breath, I tossed the singled, folded sheet into the sky and let it drift and drift, until it reached the street, sliding lightly into the corner of a building. I worried it might get muddy, but that was only for a moment. Because not a moment later, she was there. Standing there, as if transported. Her eyes were wide as she looked around and down the street, trying to realize where she was and why she was there. She then looked down, and my heart jumped. I felt like leaping out the window, like some insane flying frog and snatching the letter with my tongue, before she had a chance to see it, or me, as I then bounced away into the fog. But I caught myself on the ledge of the window, and even shrank back a little at the thought, and at the sight of her looking down, and then bending down to pick up my folded note. Did she know it was for her?

She opened the sheet, read it through, and then lowered it in her hand. The wind picked up, and it flittered in the wind as she clutched it tightly. Her face was expressionless. I could not see or sense anything about her that was sadness, or fear, or desire…or anything I could accumulate into some emotion that drove her forward. As she stepped into the street, I shrank back even further into the dark room. She wouldn’t see me up here. And even if she did, she wouldn’t be able to make out my face in the shadows.

A car came wheeling into view. She did not move. She just stood there, as if rooted. She just stood there as it quickly rushed into her. She fell, as did my letter. The force must have released it from her grip. It zipped up into the sky like a twittering humming bird. It wielded up and up and finally in through my window, bloody and torn. I snatched it with one hand, and shut the window as the sound of the car’s engine turned off, and it was silent again.

Two films that speak to cinematic history

2011-11-29T13:02:00.000-08:00

Wyman and Dietrich

Ten years after Hitchcock's masterwork, Rebecca was released, Stage Fright, staring Jane Wyman and Marlene Dietrich came to the cinema. Considered one of his lesser films, there is something about the movie's set up that still keeps a particular interest going. Similar to me, as Strangers on a Train, which I had never considered to be that interesting of a film, Stage Fright, sets up its murder plot with a flash back of one person's view of events. From there on out, Wyman's character (an aspiring actress named Eve) takes it upon herself to get to the heart of the situation by going uncover, and putting to use her skills to make it happen. The two stars are the center of the piece (and the only two non-British actors in a film set in London). Wyman's character supposedly studied in the US, which "may" account for her American accent. And Dietrich being German, well it doesn't really matter. Stage Fright was toward the end of her film career (although she would go on to do films for about another ten years). It's an interesting point of history for Wyman too. Fresh off a divorce from Ronald Regan, Wyman's film career didn't last a whole lot longer either (again, about ten years). Hitchcock however, would go on to make his most famous films in the next ten years following Stage Fright, starting with Strangers on a Train in 1951.

Chloe Grace Moretz and Asa Butterfield

A new film, by Martin Scorsese, called Hugo, based on Brian Selznick's novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, is also an interesting point of history that speaks to a particular point of history in cinema. Deemed as a fantasy adventure, the film follows a young orphan named Hugo Cabret (played with natural doe-eyed wonder and melancholy by Asa Butterfield) who, after his clockmaker father dies, is set to work for his uncle winding the towering clocks in a Parisian railway station in the 1930's. His father's last project was to fix a broken automaton (a kind of wind-up machine or mechanical man). Now that his uncle has disappeared and left to his own devices, Hugo has made his life's purpose to finish the project so sets out by stealing little wind-up parts from the railway's toy store run by Georges (played brilliantly by Ben Kingsley). Georges' goddaughter (Chloe Grace Moretz) helps connect the dots between the two and the journey from being an orphan to finding a loving family, and being a broken man without purpose, to being reinvigorated with purpose is the arch of the film's premise. But more so (as in the book) is a loving tribute to early French filmmaker, Georges Melies, best known for A Trip to the Moon (1902), of which becomes a particular plot axis, which Hugo revolves around. The rest of the supporting cast makes nice work of their parts, especially a funny and well-timed Sacha Baron Cohen as the railway inspector. It's a well done, beautifully looking movie about movies and love of movies, but mostly about a love for what you do - finding a home for your passion and a home for yourself, to be with loved ones (as many of the supporting characters are courting one another) and not being afraid to be who and what you are, despite the challenges life may throw at you. Scorsese has made a film with a sentiment that only borders on a sweet sentimentality, probably because the source material has a profound, yet simple magic to it (also a point of fact, Selznick is related to that famous of famous film producers). But its the style and grace of every participant that will give it a kind of long-viewed luster to last many years to come.

Melancholia

2011-11-22T13:46:00.000-08:00

Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg, as Justine and Claire, the characters of focus in one of the few happy moments in Lars von Trier's epic new film

Danish film director Lars von Trier's films are often about female protagonists dealing with some kind of overwrought situation. Dogville, for example, is one of my favorite films of all time. His new film, Melancholia, is clearly no different, yet the film has a slower, creeping way of getting to the heart of its subject matter. It is a densely layered and beautiful motion picture, but not without its flaws - which one could forgive, because its an "art film" or you could analyze to death, and still not come up with the appropriate reaction of how you truly feel overall after viewing this monumentally bizarre creation.

It starts out brilliantly - with beautiful shots of space and slow motion motifs, which will only have resonance after seeing the film in its entirety, but they do register as you go along. A rogue planet is heading to earth (already one of my areas of concern, as the science surrounding this impending collision and its aftermath makes little common sense to me) and there is some debate on whether of not it will simply "fly by" Earth, or directly hit it, thus marking the end of the world. The planet's name shares that of the title of the film. After about five minutes of the most visually stunning moments, the film proceeds with part one which centers around the wedding of Justine, played by Kirsten Dunst (who won best actress at Cannes for her performance). Her sister and brother-in-law live in this castle (where on Earth this place is never revealed) and are hosting the all night reception. It is discovered as the night plays out that this is a family of dysfunction (including mom and dad, played by John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling). Justine is plagued with some kind deep rooted depression, which it seems she hoped to overcome by getting married. But nothing goes right; she's continually distracted and she keeps leaving moments that should be meaningful, for moments that are fleeting. By the end of the night she's made almost everyone upset with her, including her husband (Alexander Skarsgard), who decides this whole marriage isn't going to work and leaves when other guests do as well. Part two then focuses on Claire, Justine's sister (played with rich believability by Charlotte Gainsboug). Some time has gone by since the wedding and Justine is coming to stay with her, her husband (Kiefer Sutherland) and their young son who dotes on Justine. But Justine is now in the depths of her depression and can barely move and only wants sleep. Claire seems to be the caregiver of everyone and just wants peace and tranquility and for things to be "nice". But then the whole planet thing comes back into focus and you find out that Claire is incredibly paranoid that the planet is going to hit earth. As the planet gets closer, Claire's paranoia gets deeper and Justine's depression gets better.

To reveal any further about the plot wouldn't be fair to those who actually might want to see this experiment in patience. And it is at that point where I left the exposition of plot where things start to get a little wonky. There is no doubt that this is a beautiful looking film. The emotions though, I always felt distant from them. There is a scene where someone dies and the response to that bordered on ridiculous just for the sake of being bizarre. But I suppose this is really the crux of the film's dilemma and its sentiment. Melancholia is about just that, the human condition's darkest places of the mind. How do we deal with it, how do others react to it, etc.? There is also a keen sense of "place" in the film's many metaphors. Once things become impossible on estate, they can't leave it, just like they can't leave the planet - we're alone in the universe and so we'll die alone, there is no where to run to. Claire's response to the actual possibility of the end of the world is, "then where will be son grow up?".

It is difficult to pull back the dense layers, when you don't have a full investment in the characters. I certainly felt the panic of the situation and thought, "gosh, what would I do". But there were also things that just didn't make consistent sense, such as the planet, or the array of accents going on within a single family and household. Some situations during the wedding were masterful, including comic moments by Udo Kier as the wedding planner. There is a kind of magic realism, I think- to von Trier's tale, and that might be what makes it so exasperating to sit through. You either go with it, or you don't. There is this planet coming to destroy Earth, but we are focused on one small family's problems with depression and their reactions to it. People that might not be so "sane" are able to be calm and be equipped to handle such a situation, but those of us who live "healthy" lives will panic and cry for our lives and our loved ones. Yet when it comes down to it, it seems the film only has this to say and therefore has a trite sensibility, rather than the possibility for examining this with a deeper sense of purpose and evaluation. So it is up the audience to put the pieces together, to scrutinize these disjointed moments in Justine and Claire's lives before they may end up ash in the wind of space.

The Scandinavian Play

2011-11-18T14:51:00.000-08:00

In 2008, during and after the process of The Center of the Universe, I attempted to start a couple new plays which didn't pan out and I did not see to the end. One, I certainly crossed out, as I couldn't see continuing. It started as a modern adaptation of a Russian fairy tale about a hairy man, which I had titled, Rapeseed. The title was based on the king's fields of rape being taken by the mysterious creature, and of his rape of the young prince. It wasn't going anywhere and I really lost the thread of the whole concept.

The other was a murder mystery. I came back to it recently and have found that the concept could be revived, and with more careful planning and research, could really go somewhere if I knew where to take it. And so this play has come back and I'm working away on it. It is set in a Scandinavian town in Minnesota in the fall of 1926. Partly and very, very loosely inspired by Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, it is a mix of that genre, formulated by Christie, meets Twin Peaks or something of the like. That reason being is that at the end of the first act and into the next, Scandinavian folklore is going to permeate the proceedings. A type of ghost, called a draug, and a kind of fairy or enchantress called a huldra, will appear to the lead detective as he tries to solve the murder.

a draug

The storyline keeps twisting along as I set things in motion. A rich widow is having an affair with a younger man. Suddenly the widow is dead and the lover is missing. The house keeper hires a detective visiting from England to solve the murder. The local priest becomes involved to become the detective's "Watson" and everyone who knew the widow is a suspect. There's bootlegging, ghosts, suicide, betrayal, revenge...all set amidst a very Minnesotan small town mentality in the late 20's as winter approaches and secrets and lies are what rule the behaviors, of not just the murderer, but all who try to live within such a time and place.

a huldra

So now researching Scandinavian folklore, reading a book from the university on the subject. One of the characters will turn up as a draug, which in Icelandic and Norwegian folklore is a person lost at sea and since he is not buried, come back as dead thing or ghost, covered in seaweed. A huldra, is one of the unseen folk that live in the forests. She's an enchantress, with a back carved out like a hallow tree and the tail of a fox or cow. These creatures are going to lead my detective into areas he may not have found on his own. The ending will have the same kind of surprise twist at the Christie novel, but I'm going to twist it even a step further.

Duluth circa 1926

Next I'm trying to decide just where to set the story. Right now its a fictional small town in Northern Minnesota, but I'm also exploring the idea of Duluth or Stillwater, places on the water, bigger stretches of water with an old history. My characters have names that are Norwegian, Swedish, German, British, and Welsh. I may tinker with those concepts too. I need to learn even more about prohibition of the time (specifically in Minnesota) as well as who went to which Christian church. It's all settling in to be a kind of epic period piece with some contemporary riffs and wrinkles thrown in to make it accessible and fun, yet accurate. I also want to understand the relationships between employer and employee at that time in MN. As well as a regard to strangers, gossip, and eccentricities (I can only imagine). Family was important, and there will be bonds of family that are mainly what the whole thing is about (if I look back on every single one of my plays, they all come to family).

Stillwater circa 1927

30 pages in, I'm trying to keep all the threads aligned. Writing a mystery, you must know everything, every character did or was doing at the time of the murder. Every little movement could affect another and trickle down the line. I've got my work cut out for me. But I think this is an exciting project - something different, something worth going for...it will continue to evolve and evolve and be a fluid document/endeavor.

Books to recommend

2011-11-17T11:07:00.000-08:00

Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs, the first in many Maisie Dobbs novels, is a psychological mystery novel that takes place pre, during, and post-WWI in England. Maisie is a different kind of detective. Trained by a worldly older detective (among other things), at a young age, as well as by an Eastern figure who trains her how to quiet her mind, the novel is certainly not your typical mystery. Part Upstairs Downstairs, part WWI historical romance, part covert intrigue, Maisie Dobbs glides through a few narratives to make a whole background and future for the young, ambitious, and extremely intelligent young woman. Her interest in knowledge as a house maid in an aristocratic home and the resulting "training" thereafter, may at first seem a little Eliza Doolittle, but the concentration doesn't become on the training alone, but the results of her work; going to college and then as a nurse in the war. But it is in 1929 when Maisie opens open her own agency, and with the help of a young veteran, solve a mystery surrounding the deaths of soldiers whose graves are marked with only one name.

To say it is a "psychological" mystery, does not mean to denote that it is a thriller. I use the word psychological, due to Maisie's way of detecting. Her way is to listen, learn, feel. Following clues is only one part of her solving a crime. Intuitiveness really plays deeply into how Maisie learns about a person, an experience, or understanding the bigger picture. But Maisie is an extremely likable heroine; from young maid, to war hero, she gives her all in everything she puts forth and her emotional depth goes a long way in giving the novel its sweep and continual interest. Highly recommended.

Fables is a long time running comic book series from Vertigo, by Bill Willingham. Ironically, I had just started reading the series before Once Upon a Time (an ABC television drama) came on. Upon looking into it, it seems ABC had been developing Fables for some time, the deal fell through, and so Lost creators came up with Once Upon a Time, which seems almost like a re-envisioning of the Fables concept. Fables however, imagines all "fables" (so you may see characters from other world folklore, or Wizard of Oz, etc.), not just fairy tale/Grimm Brothers characters/creatures (but yes, including them as lead characters) being exiled to New York over the last couple centuries, after being chased from their homelands by "the adversary", an all powerful foe, who conquers all of the fable lands for himself. So the big bad wolf, known as Bigby, is the sheriff of fabletown and Snow White is the Deputy Mayor. Bigby, and some other creatures are able to glamor a human look; others not so lucky (or able to afford a spell from a local witch) live out at a farm in upstate NY. In the opening storyline, Snow's sister, Rose Red, has gone missing and is possibly murdered and it is up to Bigby to solve the "mystery". The first volume of Fables, compiled as Legends in Exile, is mainly an introductory volume, introducing many of the main characters, with exposition of the history and set-up of the world. As the series goes on, things get more complicated...battles and histories, love and betrayal, magic and mysteries abound. It's maybe not as "deep" as I'd like it to be, but it's fun, it's entertaining, and likable, much like reading Harry Potter or Twilight or something ... with just a bit more blood and sex...

The Unwritten - Part 1 (issues #1-30)

2011-10-28T13:51:00.000-07:00

Mike Carey and Peter Gross' comic series, The Unwritten is one of the more compelling pieces of literature I've come across in any medium. A mystery, a thriller, a fantasy - maybe one or all three - or none of the above, it may defy genre categorization. To date, thirty issues have been released and as it keeps developing its plot and sub-plots, the intrigues behind the whole adventure continue to unravel and unravel and hopefully, will continue to be coherent and involving and not get too drawn out and thin by time. I guess that depends on how much of the story is fully developed in the minds of its creators and Vertigo's editors (Vertigo is the adult or mature imprint of DC Comics).

I will try to explain the plot. Tommy Taylor (or Tom as he'd like to be known) is the son of a famous novelist (among other things) who has written the world's most famous fantasy series about a boy wizard, his two friends, a wizard mentor and an evil nemesis (sound familiar? I don't have to spell it out, do I?). Tommy's name is the same as the boy wizard and so people naturally attach him to be same person. So he visits conventions and signs autographs and answers questions, becoming one of those celebrities who are famous just for being famous. But then his identity is put into question, and as his father is missing, Tom goes on a quest to find him and get some answers. Along the way he meets a man and a woman who are oddly similar to Tommy's two friends from the books and then... the line between reality and fantasy start to blur and the three heroes are thrust into imaginary worlds and past histories (such as Nazi era Germany or Melville's Moby Dick). Oh, and the entire time they are being chased by an mysterious cabal, a secret society who will stop at nothing to put an end to dangerous, or infectious fiction of the world and their prime target: Tommy Taylor. There is more to Tommy and his famous father and his past than meets the eye...

It really runs the gamut from the simple to the complex and is meta-fiction almost by definition. It has plenty of action sequences to keep it accessible to a wide range of audiences, but is also deeply intellectual, if not in its dialogue, then definitely in it's theme and scope. It's allegorical, humorous, dangerous, and mind bending. Often when a major storyline finishes, one comic is completely devoted to a man stuck as a rabbit in an imaginary world (see photo above). He is lewd and mouthy and wants out and back to reality and will stop at nothing to get there. He is put into dangerous situations and at one time becomes almost a dictator of a never ending staircase where all the other imaginary animals are stuck to climb and climb, searching for a way out. I find these comics to be really out there and really something. At first, I found them annoying as they would take away from the main story (left of course with a cliffhanger), but then I found them so surreal and magical, really like the entire concept itself.

The worlds and worlds within worlds of The Unwritten are so original and dynamic, you find yourself continually wanting more, wanting to know more, for more to be revealed and truly understand how and why. After Neil Gaiman's landmark The Sandman series, Vertigo has struggled to find a series as indelible (although Fables has been immensely popular, and I'm starting to read that as well, and The Unwritten's creators also did Lucifer, a spin-off of The Sandman). But with The Unwritten, it has found a way to be current and relevant, remarkable and fun, commenting on celebrity and mythology and doing it a way that strikes a new cord or resonance - a way to re-imagine how fantasy can really be about the unknown in ways that can be so familiar, yet far reaching into lands of imagination untouched before. I'm still reading...and hoping it continues to soar through those lands, and doesn't crash land into mundane.

Note: You can currently buy the series in collected volumes/graphic novel versions, currently collected up to four volumes. The new story arch is not yet collected into the fifth volume and comes out early next year.

Closed Circle

2011-10-11T11:55:00.000-07:00


Me (in the green mask, left), Karen Gruber (back) and Larry Ryan (right) in In the Wabe.

Well... Seattle's Open Circle Theater Company has officially closed its doors and dissolved the 20 year old non-profit all together. The board and company both reached a unanimous decision to do so, due to debt in relation to our second ave, Belltown space - which included a black box theater, bar, lobby, green room, tech both and rehearsal/storage space. Too expensive was the cost to keep it up, probably even for the most healthy of fringe theaters. But with a mostly new group of company members more eager to make art than raise money and tend bar, clean and clean constantly - the old OCT (and old model) was dying. But, rising from the ashes is a regrouped/reformed group called The Schoolyard, who will reproduce last season's Rocky Horror at Re-Bar, which opens near Halloween; after that, mounting a small season at different spaces and doing workshops to continue to develop new works.

Me (left) and Jeffry Gilbert (right) in H.P. Lovecraft: The Colour Out of Space

Matt Dennie as Kafka in In the Kafka Colony

I started out as an actor in the company back in 2006. I was in the ensemble of In the Wabe, a massive re-imagining of the Alice in Wonderland books. After that, I acted as the farmer in the Lovecraft show, The Colour Out of Space. I had such a great time doing that show that I helped write three more Lovecraft productions. Primarily I worked the most on Madness Out of Time, as the entire second act was mine. They produced my first original work, In the Kafka Colony, which was based on lesser known Kafka stories and fragments, as well as the last part of his life leading up to his death. It was a lovely production, one I was very proud of, despite some bumps along the way. Then the building was gone. The space that used to occupy the "first" Open Circle is now amazon.com's cafeteria.

Lantz Wagner (left), Beth Peterson (middle) and me (right) in RUR

During the period of relocation, we produced a couple plays in different spaces, including RUR, which I was in as an actor at Theater Schmeater. During this period, I was Company Manager, something that became quite encompassing, dealing with a homeless company. Then, finding the second ave space, they produced my original fantasy about multi-verses called, The Center of the Universe. This is about where I switched over to being a Co-Associate Artistic Director. I learned a lot from that production, as it just wasn't at all what I imagined it to be and felt like I could have had more of a voice in the process. From then on, I learned how important it is to make sure you are in constant contact with the director of your production - not only attending rehearsals, but meeting with them at least weekly.

Drew Sutherland as Bellhop in The Center of the Universe

Finally, The Cut was produced, based on a friend, Dennis Bensie's memoir which detailed his decent into dark places as he tried to deal with his hair-cutting addiction. Soon after, with a final production of Ajax, the theater and its board saw no way of continuing to deal with the all too expensive rent, despite a massive turn around in numbers of company members interested in working with OCT and a increase in attendance overall. OCT had been producing late night shows including burlesque and continuing to be the more cutting edge company in town. Gary Zinter, the new Artistic Director (who directed The Cut) made a difference in the art being produced on stage and people noticed. Most people have followed into The Schoolyard and the energy is very different. More so than I have felt since maybe when I started in 06 and people were fired up about making art on stage. Shows like Are We Scared would blow me away, not only in the conception but in the execution as well. I'm hoping The Schoolyard can keep the fire going and not putter out like OCT has over the last 20 years, despite mounting some incredible productions and experimental theater, to be seen in Seattle.

Scott Shoemaker (left) and David Rollison (right) in The Cut

The Schoolyard is still developing a mission - I think everyone knows what it is, it just needs to be articulated the right way. Leaving that space and OCT behind is really a good thing for everyone. It's the future worth concentrating on, not the past. That's what's important now, what everyone is jazzed and excite about: the future of making great theater that stays with an audience long after the final blackout. OCT had a great run, but it's time had really come. The open circle is now a closed one.

The gay perspective (and why the perspective is skewed)

2011-09-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

Watched a movie recently called, I Love You Phillip Morris, which stars Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor and centers around a non-fictional prison escape artist (Carrey) who keeps breaking out to be with his lover (McGreogor) whom he met in prison. It was funny, sweet, a little sexually confronting, but nothing more so than any gay sex scene on cable television (probably less so). It was released in the US nearly a year after Europe because it's distributors kept changing hands due to the gay themes (and probably because those two gay characters are played by two international movie stars). I thought Carrey's performance was the best of career (directly behind the brilliant films The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind). McGregor has often done controversial films, especially at the beginning of his career before he became a Star Wars icon.

Ewan McGregor and Jim Carrey in I Love You Phillip Morris

So is the fate of the Hollywood agenda. Unless you're a sad, tragic martyr for coming out or fighting for gay rights (the successful and amazing Brokeback Mountain and Milk) anything else is just frivolous, about drag queens or one night stands. Apparently a new film coming out of England called Weekend is being hailed as one of the first serious gay films taking the gay relationship seriously, a love story for everyone that happens to be about two men. This I would like to see. Although inspiring and sentimental films like Big Eden have a soft spot in my heart and gave me hope for the plight of gay cinema, that film was really more about the possibilities of gay love stories and a non-realistic fable, rather that out and out reality. And television doesn't offer anything better. Modern Family's gay couple is played mostly for laughs and has such a stereotypical ring to them it's almost hard to stomach. "Oh, but they're so cute. And they have a baby." And so I haven't watched enough of it to be a proper judge, I can say the writers try to show the complexities of a gay relationship. Successful or not, America seems to approve (look at all the Emmys they get). Queer as Folk in England and America had such promise, but in America it really went nowhere after a while and the same themes were explored over and over as to be recycled nonsense. And although I loved me some Will and Grace...well, need I really say much more about the portrayals on that show?

And so watch this new film Weekend be remade in a few years with American actors. I mean it seemed to work for Queer as Folk and The Birdcage, as European cinema has more edge and bite in their gay stories than America, so America takes them, waters them down with some hunky or funny actors and there you have a hit. That's why Priscella, Queen of the Desert is a Broadway musical and people laugh and have fun and think being gay is such a gay old time.

It seems literature is the only place where the gay perspective comes out right and why it's so tricky to adapt such authors' work. John Rechy, Edmund White, William S. Burroughs, all authors who wrote about the gay experience pre and post-Stonewall but their stories were often tragic, sexual and sexually confused or purported as deviant. Even authors that didn't have the gay agenda, such as James Baldwin wrote in the tragedy of being a gay man (and in his part black to boot). Now everyone is out and proud and loud and annoying. I believe in supporting Pride every year as its important for teaching everyone that it's okay to be who you are. But the youth today are out in high school. Dating or sex hooks up are done on your cell phone and every other straight girl is a "fag hag" to her gay boyfriend(s).

The gay perspective, to me at least, hasn't been defined in this first decade of a new century. Just as new technology is taking our world deeper into a new marketplace for the future of our lives and workforce, so is the gay community, struggling to find a voice and new stronghold of equality. But do we really want to be like everyone else? Part of Pride is being different, not the same. Everyone now wants to run off and get married and have children and be like the couple on Modern Family. Well, you think that is what the Republicans or the evil right winged Christians would want for us, to be normal. No, they want us to be miserable, go to some clinic for a cure, and make us just like them. Think about that for a second. It's almost like that's what we're doing by wanting to be like everyone else. I like films like I Love You Phillip Morris because it's unconventional. It's a gay love story without having to be a traditional love story. The perspective out there needs to change. We, as a community of gay people, need to help educate simple minded (or just ignorant) Americans. (It's wonderful "don't ask don't tell" was revoked, and I'm sure someday every gay couple that wants to get married can, it'll just be a matter of time. I just don't understand why, as a gay person you'd want to get married or be in the military, but to each his own I suppose.)

But let's get back to shocking the world into the reality that we're different and proud to be so. We want their love and support, but they should know we're not them and we will never be like them. That's why our story needs to be told in a new way that makes them see and understand that, so that the perspective can evolve, in this new decade, to something new, something brave and enlightening that will change the perspective for the betterment of our future in the society of the world and future societies to come.

to wake again

2011-09-16T15:14:00.000-07:00

to wake again

Dustin Engstrom © by the author 2011

They have enabled me the day
                                            a moment upside down within
                                                                       a belly encased of dead juices
I spoke to the Rain King
He spoke in mists and spurts of torrents
                                coming down
                                cats and dogs
I whispered "please fall on this hot town tonight"

They have handed me the night
                                   a world right side up without
                                                         a trace of irony or secret doorways
I spoke to the Moon Goodess
She looks at you as if you are a dream and I sigh
                                 shining down
                                 romantic kisses turned to bliss
I think I may have said "please give us full and make the crazies own their right"

a. they turned at the bang
it was a thunder
glass, air, blood

waking in the side street
walking down a shadow
he spoke through mazes and hazes unknown to this world
and then nothing
like nothing ever was
or has been

b. they saw the shoes fly
from his feet into the street
run, towel, more blood

shifting through the fog he sees a light
from a tear in the world she glides like a ghost into his sight
"do not be afraid"
he tries to run, mouth dry, brow dripping the fear she sees in him
"i can't be dead" he utters, though maybe he didn't, he can't tell
"come to me" she dreams into his mind, his soul

c. they heard the sirens scream
saw the crowds gather and gawk like voyeuristic vultures
as he was treated to see if he was still alive

air stale and light blinding, he walks with her further into nothing
her hand touches his like a warm fluid filing from without to within
there is something up ahead
rain and moon, sex and dance
more than he can take in
a world upside down and right side up and everything and nothing all at once

d. they see the stretcher roll his way
yellow strips block their way
cops talking and walking and pushing and taking control

he sits and takes it in
she smiles like a wide opening in time, so lost and magical,
twisted,
           ethereal
"this is, what is" she sings into his wet, blinking eyes
a wind comes like a pull and pushes everything forward into the dreaming
arms open wide to encompass all that is new, all that is love
he sifts into a breeze like a fallen leaf flitting down an Autumn street

e. they pick up his shoes
all vehicles depart, flash and wine their way away
some blood, some glass, then again mundane

it rains that night to erase it
some remember, most move on
"he was just a vagrant" some will say
"is he gone?" others will whisper
the moon speaks in rays
"time is light, light has fled, he is fled without the day"

f. and then, they hung up their eyes and plunged
                                  like hawks to dream
                                                           to wake again
                                                   alive some day

Familial

2011-08-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

Familial, by Dustin Engstrom
a fragment

Cycle of rebirth, reincarnation. Family, work, death. A lazy, rocking-chair wind blows softly through lives unfettered by time's obsessive ticking.

Familial dysfunction. Familiar. Almost dead, almost ready. Maker fighting back the urge to step on bugs scattering to uncertain grounds, flashing bitterly the last remaining breath of hope.

Teeth of shine. Shoes of razor sharp. Moaning to the tune of licking
lips
     like little lollies
                         lapping laughing loose loving lovers loving
                                                                                       like looping lopsided lodgers living life learned.

Stopped
           inside
                   shell
           ocean
wings

Bringing up the rear. Looking back. Seeing the distrust.

"There he is!" "Get him!"

Coming,
bleating,
shouting,
screaming,
dying like a bird shot down by a blind hunter.

And there we are. In our old shells. Oceans salty, molted, rotted logs in the rain-forest of dizzy dreams. Stepping up the catalogs of youth. This section is called "night" wherein you would rock yourself to sleep in the moments in between lost strings tightened into ropes to keep you still. There - look - see. He made it. Did he? Is he still breathing? Maybe. May - be not.

And there you go. In your new suit. Living like a smart business-man walking down the business district doing business things - making phone calls - sending memos (or they call them e-mails now) - opening - closing doors - firing and hiring - an old pig like an Orwellian nightmare - stretch back, chair is warm, cigar hot, listening to winds a'comin - oh how they sing your lofty, hotly boiling way to hell.

And there it all comes back. Home. Familial. Familiar. Simple. Old. Worn. Known. Like a glove. Like a womb. Haunted hallways and animals wagging. Mothers and fathers - sisters or brothers - uncles, aunts and cousins all needing and wanting, laughing and crying, like one mad poster for something you just have to buy, even though you don't need it. Visions of lawns widespread - long and deep, trees tall and languid, swinging tire swing - swimming lilacs - dirt and grass, smell of new - taste of dew - a map through memories, soggy yet able to dry, laying them out like a treasure chest - look here, it's an "old toy" - it awakens ...
everything.

And then we roost. It seems time I saw that old man who lives in that old house, you know the one who says all those crazy, twisted things you can't understand - yet - seem ... familiar? It's a reflection, isn't it? That's me ... I'm old and fettered here, this place, this ... home. Where is my lover? There he sits, quiet - tired, smiling, saying... "we'll be here forever...together...in love" ... and the wind blows again, a song drifting upon it, a song about childhood, a song about that grasp for wealth and power, a song about coming home and going home, a song about the last years of your life - that part is quiet, soft, a lingering memory, a brush of your hair with the back of a hand, so gentle, so loving - and you smile, as you know this familiar familial life is what you are, who you've been and how you'll die... you say goodbye, wave a limp and tired hand, aching with age, a last gesture to time and time's seductive mistress of youth and bittersweet memories... like a baby reborn...
new
new
new...

Trains in the Winter of Night

2011-08-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

I was reading some old poems I had written in college, filled with images that I remember very clearly, although the memories are muddled by time. There is an almost ironic flavor to them, as if I knew that some day I would be looking back on them and my time living in a commune, basically above a coffee house - and realizing, looking back how uneventful those times actually were. It was a time of dreaming of what our lives would end up being like - who we were, where we were going, how it would all work out. The long poem was titled "Above the Coffee Shop" and the people in it are now all spread out around the nation, although a couple are still living in Minnesota. 99% of them are married, a couple of them with children. One is getting married this month (and unfortunately I'll still be here in Seattle, but I wish him the best). Friends evolve and change and move into different lives, different states of being. I think sometimes what life would be like having made different choices. But every choice you make defines the world you live in. There is little to know you don't already know when you choose to live the life you are living. It's looking outside of that world that expands it, changes your perspective on everything beyond your scope.

This is an example from the poem (I've put two parts together, as one I think they're more cohesive this way. A lot of the poem is a little cringe worthy to me now, but there are pieces I am proud of...):

does it mean anything
to stand upon the ground sinking and out of the world's tattered vision
and we sit above the COFFEE SHOP
where we live
for a time
lights bleeding in patterns above our smoky heads
no more looks out the window
we saw the ghosts dancing around the streetlights
blinking red and red and red
trains slipping past us
shaking our very eyes
there it is
my old days
above and
the fellows in the kitchen
prattle on about sex
watch smoke lazily linger
the flies playing a top the CAPTAIN MORGEN bottle
and now life is profound
cuz all these people said it
snowed in
the poems are scattered on the carpet
everywhere is smiles

There is a distinct memory there. There are pieces of earlier poems in the above piece and it kind of summed up two years of time. But it is mainly a memory about the winter. Living in Minnesota during the winter, especially where we lived on the prairie (yes, little college on the prairie) the winds were brutal, as there were very little trees to block it. And our building we lived in was right on the train tracks. My bed would shake at night from the trains...eventually they are what would put me to sleep at night. There was this one time, we were holed up in my room and the wind was very strong and we looked out the window and saw the wind picking up the snow and tossing it around the stoplight (which at night would just blink red, small town) and so it looked like ghosts flying around in the night under this red light. I remember the image being very magical at the time...of course now I remember how the winds and snow were like where I grew up and could be just as painfully brutal, yet wondrous at the same time. The lights were Christmas lights of course that my friend had spread out above his room and the kitchen adjacent where they would sit for hours and talk about sex and drugs and any number of political and social issues (it was college after all) and I have this distinct memory of waiting for something during one of those conversations... what I was waiting for I couldn't tell you, or I was hung over, or I needed to study or go somewhere, but something was keeping me there at that table and I watched flies trying to get the sticky liquid around the top of a liquor bottle and it seemed liked they were playing or dancing and my dreams floated above me, like a hole in the fabric of time and I saw myself looking back - maybe it's me now, watching me there, sitting, waiting - and I'm waiting for the vision, I'm waiting for time to elapse. Snowed in - so many times, you couldn't do anything as you felt trapped by the winter. Yet, we had our poetry and our art and everyone was happy. It was a simpler time. And yet, then I felt completely at odds with everything and was continually depressed. It's comical now, or a relief. It seemed a tragedy to me then...how young and eager I was - to wanted to know everything, be everything, do everything...and then you grow up and see life is no longer just discovery, it's work and it's day to day...it's starting over and staying strong. Life isn't the profound playground of dreamworlds you imagined it to be. It is reality. I have finished tweaking my new play and I quoted Lawrence Ferlinghetti in the front (he was probably the most influential on my poetry):

The dog trots freely in the street
and sees reality
and the things he sees
are bigger than himself
and the things he sees
are his reality

I suppose we're all just trains in the winter of night. Passing like ghosts through our own reality.

The Final Potter

2011-07-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

The extremely successful Harry Potter franchise ended this past weekend with the opening of the final film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, the second half of a two part film based on J.K. Rowling's seventh and final Harry Potter novel. When reading the HP series, you find yourself transported into a magical world so charming and so equally addictive, it's hard to put one of the books down once you've started. Toward the end of the publications of her books, people were so fervent about getting their hands on one of the final books that there were midnight sales of the books as well as of the films and HP and friends were a world wide phenomenon, amassing great wealth and fame for Rowling and putting young adults books on the map for actually making money - an industry now that has jumped leaps and bounds in the last decade, paving the way for authors of the genre to really create lifetime careers.

But if you haven't read the books (it's not too late) there are the films which have also been the launching pad of three young actors' careers. They've been surrounded by a who's who of accomplished UK actors, who in the final film really amp up the chops - as do that of Harry, Ron and Hermione. The books get more and more epic as the series goes on, transforming from children's books, into young adult books - and dare I say, in the end, adult fantasy fiction. The last book's death count really racks up there and the films do not shy away from such violence. The three leads grew up making these films in the last ten years - as do the content of the films, which make each one more and more progressive in depth and scope, as the main villain of the series, Voldemort, becomes stronger and stronger so that in the end it's just about stopping him and every day school events go out the window rather quickly. What I really loved about the last book (my favorite, the 3rd book is a close second) is that it really wraps things up so well, so believably and so satisfyingly - that it makes for such a winning series of books (and for the most part, films). There are a few plot holes here and there that are strange odds and ends - and the films make their own holes strangely enough, by trying to squeeze Rowling's fictions into a motion picture length viewing experience. Brilliantly, the last book is made into two films, which really allows the filmmakers to get the story right in the end, in which it really deserved to be told. But this also gives director David Yates (probably the best director of the film series) a little more room to breathe with some of the quieter moments - such as shots of Harry or Harry, Ron and Hermione just being or thinking or standing or sitting as if this is an art film and we are studying their thoughts along with them. At times this works - it gives the film, again, a more adult sensibility - less dialogue, more to think about - and at other times, Yates' editor should have cut just a few seconds off certain lingering shots, instead he let the composer's score take the lead on when the shot should end. There are also slight changes from the book's final action moments and the film's, which make only true fans squirm at the differences. But these are minor squabbles - the film is breathtaking and wonderfully captured - Harry has never been more sure of himself and what he must accomplish and the way the film weaves in and out of the battle at Hogwarts is exciting and dramatic, without becoming too blatant and feverish. The pitch and tone of the film is just right and it keeps you truly on the edge of your seat, unlike any of the previous films in the series. Warner Brothers is also ending its equally successful Dark Knight series next summer, and the final HP film really stands up the film-making bravado that Christopher Nolan exhibits in his fantastic films.

But what the final film really comes down to is Snape. His story arch comes full circle and you finally find out the true motives of his behavior and how it really ties everything together. Alan Rickman's portrayal has always been spot on - his choppy way of delivering his lines, his facial expressions, his sweeping gait, his moodiness, his subversive humor - all added up to the perfect articulation of the character from the books - but when you really find out who Snape is and why he's done what he's done - you see Rickman really pull out a performance that steals every other one in the film. And the sequence where all is revealed about Snape's past is a credit to Yates' chops as well - the film really makes a statement here, one that will be stamped on the face of fantasy films for years to come. The final Potter was Harry's story full circle, but it was also a lasting testament to a brilliant character and performance of Severus Snape.

You're Not Getting Any Younger

2011-07-13T15:18:00.000-07:00

Old Age, Adolescence, Infancy (The Three Ages) – Salvador Dalí, 1940

An email came through my computer that read "you're not getting any younger". I thought, well, no I'm not. Each second that ticks by like a mediated filming of sand through the hour glass, time, or the essence of existing into non-existing is essentially, constant and evolving - makes us older - decayed, dead. It is the act of living that contradicts this notion. I joke with my partner all the time about our ages. He is perturbed by the fact that he is the age he is (all I'll say is that he is nine years older than me) - and I, being that nine years younger, am too - actually upset about my age. So I keep making us younger. He'll say "and this year you're going to x year's old" and I'll say, "no no no, I'm still x [a couple to few years younger]" as I think I'm still one particular age and have a hard time moving on to realize, no I am older and continue to grow older with each passing year. He's more "resigned" to the age he is, he's just not happy about it. And he's often looking ahead "and then I'll be...x...in this many years and you'll be x - can you believe it?" One of his favorite lines had been from "When Harry Met Sally" where Harry comforts Sally when she pines "and I'm going to be forty" and he responds "in eight years". It represented that moment in time when you enter your thirties thinking, this is when it'll all happen, I'll be settled down in my personal and professional life and I'll have it all figured out. And more often than not, it doesn't work that way and so you go - oh no, I'm going to be old before I've done anything worth anything to anyone...especially myself.

But what represents "worth" to an individual annoyed with time's clock ticking and striking in one's ear and cerebral posturing? Well certainly most Americans have a checklist. Career, marriage, family. But for me, those things represent something totally alien and disconnected. There is no line there for me - no easy idealism, no flow from one to the other. Most people have a problem with at least one of the three. Say, trying to start a family sometimes can be difficult for some couples - as where others have no problem. Some would wish to start a family, but they're concerned about having enough money to support that step. Some can't get married, it is against the law (and some of those same people now can in New York). I've never wanted to get married or have a family. And as much as that's upset my own family, they know that my happiness is a rare kind of worldview. And yet my partner and I often talk of marriage - but not in any traditional sense. In September of this year will be our ten year anniversary as a couple. There is no marriage certificate, no wedding pictures or memories (of a wedding, we obviously have memories). We each have a ring on a finger and lived together for almost every month of those ten years. We want to be recognized as equal and maybe some day have some kind of ceremony - which would be more like a big celebration or party of our life together - and commitment to one another. But to me, marriage is something straight people do to make themselves feel like God has somehow anointed them some kind of club status. You're now "legally" married to God and country. You get a house and pay taxes. You grow a tree in the background, maybe a swing set. But before all that --money is spent on the perfect dress, venue and food. And people come, get drunk and call it great. (If only funerals had the same celebratory nature.) Then there is career. I've spoken on such topics in this blog before - where are we going, what are we doing, how do we get there/what we want - how long do we hang in there - how do you reconcile what it is you do versus what it is you really want to do - or balance the in between? Is it money or glory - what's happiness when it comes to career? My view is just happy - but maybe that's too simple for my aging being to continue to cooperate within the boundaries of - like the concept of time - benchmarks - decisions - lifetime of worries adding up to frustration and distancing of ethical regard - because time is too persuasive a monitor. And children. Well - so many people I know are having children. And more than one! It's admirable from afar. But again, reminds one of aging again. We were watching a movie last night that brought this subject on again - "yeah, but mom and dad are like 40. They're old, they don't remember anything" (I'm paraphrasing the film). Children view parents as old. And then children grow up and think they themselves are old and see that their parents are aging at a visible rate and life becomes a cycle of disengagement with aging. A lashing out, if you will. Along the way, we fight disease, social and political battles along with that struggle of finding happiness, any way, shape or form. To me, it always seems like a fleeting operation of new decisions. Who are we, where are we going, what are we doing and why? Next move, next move, next move. Strategic or impulsive? Some things are familiar, while other things quickly become obsolete. And that's scary and exciting and sad all at once. There is no easy answer to aging. We're not getting any younger. In fact we live, to constantly die. And dying, although mysterious and sad as it is, will somehow be the release from the error of humanity. Our error (err) is to be human (forgive, divine - eh), but to be dead, is to what...be happy? Or in other (maybe less perverse) words, to be dead is to know why we lived at all in the first place.

The Anubis Gates

2011-06-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates is an award winning 1983 fantasy novel that is one of the absolute best I've read. Right up there with the sheer imagination and plot twists and turns as any Neil Gaiman major novel, The Anubis Gates is so original, yet familiar, it has the kind of charm and relentless way of keeping you consistently interested that few epic novels of its genre can accomplish with such seemingly effortless ease. It teases and tantalizes, thrills and spills its entertainment so fluidly that you are captivated from start to finish.

It's hero is Brendan Doyle, a professor of literature and expert of long dead poets. He is hired to be such an expert on an expedition, funded by an eccentric millionaire, to go back to 1800's London. Unbelievable as it is, there are gaps in time (eventually to be discovered known to the Egyptians as the Anubis Gates) that are open only for a certain period, of which Doyle and crew have tumbled, yet Doyle gets trapped behind and from then on, the real epic journey begins for him as he desperately wants to get back home to the 20th century. There is body switching, sorcery and magic, a deformed clown, beggars and thieves, trips to Egypt, homunculus creatures, magic-made doppelgangers, poets and gypsies, and lots and lots of adventure with turn after turn of surprises that keep the story ever evolving. I highly recommend the novel to anyone. Although it does take a deep dive toward the end where everything really bangs out of control, it comes back up for air just in time to keep you reading until your eyes and brain linger for more...

Next I'm reading his The Stress of Her Regard.

Infernal Devices

2011-06-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter is one of the more odd, sensational and funny fantasy adventures I've read in some time. Jeter is the coiner of the genre phrase "steampunk" and Devices is a lost classic, only recently being back in print (originally released in the late 80's). Steampunk has now become a fairly common theme among sci-fi/fantasy fans as well as in manga, anime, and major motion pictures. The concept draws on a Victorian/19th century England where the advent of new technology, specifically powered by steam is leading to clockwork inventions, airship battles, and alternate realities where often religion and technology clash.

Devices is a prime example of all the above (but minus the airships). A young man named George Dower inherits his father clock shop in London and once a strange visitor wants one of his father's inventions fixed, Dower is set on a series of misadventures which consistently turn up one intrigue after the other. At first, the language seems too elaborate for a fantasy epic, yet once you become accustomed to the style, it all seems quite simple; an easy, fun and really enjoyable read. Dower is a likable protagonist. His ignorance of the outside world makes his reaction to the seemingly impossible more believable. The novel keeps you guessing and the sub-plots keep piling up like so many winding gears, but once the plot twists are slowly peeled back, a larger picture comes into focus. So the first half of the book feels of a Holmes-like mystery and the second, a true steampunk adventure with sea creatures, flying machines, mad inventors and mad societies, time travel references, world domination and many mad, suspenseful chases through London to the English countryside, to a Scottish isle, all the while wondering how the whole thing fits together. And because the novel is such a puzzle like maze of confusions and mysteries, expositions and unmasking, it gave me quite a thrill and I found myself wanting there to more mad adventures of the poor Mr. Dower and the fascinating and dubious characters he meets along the way.

Untitled Adventure

2011-04-13T13:34:00.000-07:00

I am working on a new play, currently "Untitled". Although right now I have a couple things going on in my head: "Monsters Live in Cages" or "Sometimes a Lonely Dog Likes to Get Kicked" - as they are two lines in the piece (but I should probably consult my title writer, Robert Blanco). I'm only about 30 pages in, but it feels fresh and new. After working on "The Cut" for so long, this feels excitedly different. Also, doing an adaptation can be quite the exercise. "The Cut" was though, one of the best experiences I've had working in the theater in any capacity. But working on something that is entirely your own is very rewarding. I'm not sure what I'm doing with it yet - I'm throwing it out to a couple people to read. I'm also going to be reworking a play I wrote in 07 called "George" about a truck driver.

The new piece is about two couples reuniting 12 years later after they all graduated college together. The two men have a deadly secret that is destined to be revealed and a mysterious stranger offers one of them a way out. Its mind and time bending, violent and brutal. It circles around revenge and living without regret and ends up being a psycho/fantasy thriller a la David Lynch, Richard Matheson or Jean Cocteau. I've been reading a lot of Matheson lately and was really struck by a story called "Return" which was written in 1951. There are also elements of "Button Button" (the mysterious stranger reference mostly). But time travel is often an element in my work especially since my work is definably fragmented and gives way to time travel on its own. "Return" is very much about time travel in the obvious time machine sense. Also - I've always wanted to return to a Kafkaesque sensibility and I feel this new piece may be a bit more Lynch than Kafka although you could call Lynch a modern Kafka as his heroes or heroines are always in some kind of trouble in a baffling, labyrinthine world. Cocteau comes in to play mainly because I was inspired by "Orpheus" and its kind of dream like underworld and philosophies.

David Lynch

Richard Matheson

Jean Cocteau

There are many different elements that make up a story. There is the inciting incident, the plot, the structure, the characterizations, the dramatic action, the theme, conflict, stakes, subtext, exposition - etc. And some of these are words for the same thing, but they all work together to create a whole. In that, there is always contradiction - as people are walking and talking contradictions. It is in these contradictions that we find humanity. Humans toil is the stuff of make believe, regardless of how far out the subject matter. When taking on a new piece there is a relative terror that opens up inside as well as a drive to keep going, keep working and keep trying new things. In "The Center of the Universe" there were many challenges with time jumping - here, I have a new time jumping challenge which is to put the protagonist in the past to alter the future. Not always an easy thing to convey, especially on stage. So here comes another adventure. Some definitions of adventure describe it as "hazardous" with an "uncertain outcome". Here's to the uncertain outcome!

Ps. Rest in peace, Diana Wynne Jones. Your worlds were always full of adventure.
Pss. "Game of Thrones" premieres this week on HBO. I'm very excited!!

Three minute composite of THE CUT

2011-02-28T10:22:00.001-08:00

Podcast

2011-01-31T09:43:00.000-08:00

A podcast where Dennis and I talked about his book and my play:

Galore Podcast

The Cut Production Photos

2011-01-27T15:22:00.000-08:00

The Cut's Reviews

2011-01-25T13:43:00.000-08:00

Well, THE CUT will go into it's third week this weekend and the reviews have been very, very mixed. I expect there will be a couple more before the run is over as well. The first review was so much in praise of the piece I was taken aback at how much the critic liked it. The second was so so, but mostly really liked it. The third didn't like it that much, and the new ones coming out are so so as well. That's not to say anyone hated it - which is good - but the reviews overall I would say have been very mixed indeed.

As I've had time to give it a little thought - I've decided this is a good thing. Because the reviews are so varied, it really goes to show how people react differently to the piece - which is challenging for any audience. But I am very proud of everyone involved in the show, and I will always remember the experience as one of the most rewarding I've ever experienced.

Missing Cut Trailer

2011-01-13T13:31:00.001-08:00

I realized I never shared this trailer....

2011-01-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

THE CUT is very very close to opening - this Friday in fact. And its sold out. Tech is going well and things are progressing... I'm skipping tonight and waiting to go again on final dress on Thursday so I can just stay out of things for now and let them do their work. Its amazing work though - its going to be a truly amazing production. I have not worked with such a capable, likable, or talented group of people on one of my productions like this before - its refreshing and a delight. From the new formatted programs, the awesome art installations in the lobby - to the amazing wigs (24 or more of them!), the articulate and precise direction, capable and keen actors, and a group of great designers and technicians - to a staff that is working well together - all of which is leading up to what I hope will be a truly wonderful opening. Fingers crossed!

Elliott Bay

2011-01-06T16:58:00.001-08:00

Dennis is reading from SHORN on Sunday this week at Elliott Bay: Elliott Bay Reading Event Info

The Cut Press Release

2011-01-03T13:10:00.001-08:00

MEDIA RELEASE CONTACT: Open Circle PR

DATE: 12/6/10 PHONE: (206) 406-7920

KILL DATE: 2/18/10 EMAIL: pr@octheater.com

Open Circle Theater is pleased to announce the world premiere of “The Cut”.

A man has found himself in a dismal situation, paying street hustlers to shave their heads. Knowing it’s the only way he feels fulfilled emotionally and sexually, he thrusts himself directly onto that destructive path, which threatens to destroy him, but he can’t stop. When he’s alone, he retreats to a secret world he created during his childhood where a doll is his closest confidante and the desire to cut hair at a very young age grows into a dangerous compulsion.

Adapted by OCT Associate Artistic Director, Dustin Engstrom, from the recently published memoir, Shorn: Toys to Men, by Dennis Milam Bensie, the world-premiere play, “The Cut”, takes you on a dark and unusual journey of a man's desperate need for control, self-acceptance and love.

*Contains nudity and sexual violence

WHAT: THE CUT

WHEN: January 14^th-February 5^th Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30, Sundays at 4pm

OPENING NIGHT IS Pay What You Can

PRICE: $16 at the door / $14 Advance at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/140254

Students/Seniors $3 off at the door

WHERE: Open Circle Theater 2222 2^nd Ave

Directed by Gary Zinter

The Cut PR Photos and new trailer!

2011-01-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

The Cut - my adaptation of the memoir Shorn: Toys to Men by Dennis Milam Bensie is just two weeks away from opening! Below is a new trailer, some PR photos of our actors posing as hustlers and the actor playing Dennis cutting the hair of one of them. And the trailer is of the wig fittings -- there are many, many wigs! There is also a link to an article from Ashland, OR - about the book.

Ashland article about Shorn

The Cut - how you can buy tickets!

2010-12-30T10:03:00.000-08:00

The Cut tickets

The Cut VIP Reception Tickets

PR Photos and new trailer to come...

Black Swan

2010-12-13T11:00:00.000-08:00

Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain, The Wrestler) has been a director to watch for some time. His knack for detailed character study amidst struggles of physical and psychological pain - even spiritual transcendence - have been given the highest praise as well as most careful scrutiny by critics and audiences alike. His new film Black Swan, staring Natalie Portman (in a surprisingly earnest and possibly Oscar worthy performance) has all the elements that make his films so watchable, yet at the same time so uncomfortable to bear.

Portman plays Nina, a ballet dancer at Lincoln Center who has dreams of becoming the next star - as the light of an aging star in the company (Winona Ryder) is about to go out. The company's director (Vincent Cassel) announces he plans to stage a new version of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and will be looking for a new Swan Queen (Nina's dream role). As perfect as Nina is for the White Swan (vulnerable, fragile, innocent) the dancer must be able to play the "evil twin", the Black Swan as well - an opposite of the characteristics of the White Swan. At the same time a new dancer joining the company (played with free spirited sexiness by Mila Kunis) seems to have all the right qualities to play the role. At home, Nina lives with her mother (a finely tuned performance by Barbara Hershey) who dotes and frets upon her daughter and worries that she may be hurting herself in her nervous and anxious longings to be the best dancer.

The tone and atmosphere Aronofsky sets up right from the beginning give deep resonance and pay homage to Roman Polanski (especially the paranoid rumination Repulsion). Even Polanski is still exercising a thrill at the cinema given his last film's (the sharp political thriller The Ghost Writer) eerie mood and suspense. In that view, Aronofsky brings the audience back to a time in cinema where fear is under the surface and carefully peeled back, not thrust in the viewer's face. It fosters a 60's or 70's sensibility as Nina's deep desire to play the lead in Swan Lake so overcomes her entire being, she begins to lose her own sense of reality - and that dissociation - of being unable to distinguish what is real and what is a dream - or possible psychosis - captures the viewer so completely, that they too become a part of Nina's dream journey into the depths of a nightmare, all the way to the opening night performance (guided by Tchaikovsky's haunting music, probably intoned into me from Tod Browning's variation of the piece in the classic Dracula).

The duel personality - that of the white and black swan - is a mirror of Nina's desperate and heartfelt battle to be the most perfect ballerina to ever grace the stage. In that we watch in pain along with her - the camera swoons with the dancers as they fling themselves across the stage floor - bodies twisting, feet and toes spinning. The film depicts (whether completely accurate or not) the ballet world in such detail, that at first glance, the film almost seems to be a documentary of the rise of a ballet star, there are so many scenes of rehearsal. But the duel manner of the film's heroine (not unlike Fyodor Dostoyevsky's hero in The Double) is what unravels in an ominous fashion as we descend along with Nina into a dream so fervent and so at odds with itself that it threatens not only her very existence but of being able to dance Swan Lake - which to Nina is much more important. But there are obstacles to overcome - the increasingly overbearing mother (one begins to think of Brian De Palma's Carrie), the rival dancer and the disappointed director (both of whom instill fear, anger and desire within Nina).

Aronofsky's film is not without its cliches - most of which have already been described - but he uses those cliches to his advantage. It is the way in which he focuses the story so wholeheartedly on Nina that gives the film its creeping pull - a lot of which is due to Portman's nuanced performance. When she locks herself in a bathroom stall (the same stall in which she uses to vomit her weight away in) to call her mother and give her the news she got the part - you see a million tiny threads of emotion running through her body - acting I've not seen Portman so acutely display before. The dancing (Portman and Kunis went through a ballet boot camp) is shot in its most realistic form, and displays the excruciating physical strains on the dancer's body (you wonder why one would become a ballet dancer - the crackling of the toes alone sends a shiver). But Aronofsky knowing the pressures of the ballet world (his sister went to ballet school) solicited a script that would examine those pressures (much as he examined the wrestling world through Mickey Rourke's comeback performance) has sculpted an old fashioned psychological thriller that truly delivers. In time it will be hearkened as a classic of the genre in the same way Polanski's Rosemary's Baby or Dario Argento's Suspiria are today. But moreover, Black Swan delivers on a realistic level. Despite its psychological and looming fantastical trappings, Nina's journey is a testament to anyone who ever had a dream - a dream so worthy and so scary, you would do anything to live or die for it.

Poster for The Cut

2010-12-07T15:07:00.000-08:00

The poster. I quite frankly think its great, provocative and dangerous- and the detail of it is great as our new designer reads all the scripts before he designs the posters -- down to the detail of having the barber cutting the boy's hair -- all a part of the script. Really fascinating poster.

Dennis' blog post

2010-12-03T11:41:00.000-08:00

I wrote this blog post back in August on Dennis' blog for the book the The Cut is based on -- being published in January by Coffeetown Press. The last paragraph in this blog entry I wrote will be a blurb in the book as a quote from me.

http://shorn.coffeetownpress.com/?p=69

And here is a link to the utube trailer as it may be easier to watch as a link rather that in my posting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7JgLnhr1tA

Trailer, etc.

2010-12-02T10:17:00.000-08:00

Posted the trailer for The Cut -- now successfully! Dennis did a great job - he pulled dialogue directly from the play. The cast is doing an amazing job -- watched a stumble through the other night and they are right on target. Its going to be something I'll really be proud of - I believe - I have a hard time with the processes and productions of shows of mine in the past, but this group of people are really wonderful and its amazing to me with such a difficult subject matter -- they all get it and step up to the plate with seeming ease and compassion.

The Cut trailer!

2010-12-02T10:14:00.000-08:00

The Cut & Potter

2010-11-19T10:29:00.000-08:00

The Cut is rehearsing and going well. Still tweaking...still evolving. But what a wonderful cast and the director is guiding it in a great direction and everyone is coming to the table with wonderful ideas and concepts. Its going to be a haunting production.

In other news. HARRY POTTER! Going tomorrow to the film then Robert is making dinner for us and a couple friends of ours and there will be wine and Daniel on Graham Norton. Whoo hoo!

It's the little things. I'm more excited for tomorrow than the holidays! But happy Thanksgiving anyway...

Busy writings

2010-10-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

Tonight HP Lovecraft's Pickman's Model opens, of which I wrote a couple scenes. We have auditions Sunday and Monday for The Cut of which I've just finished a new draft. We start rehearsals next month and it goes up in January. Tuesday I'm rehearsing for a reading of a play I wrote in 07 called George. The reading itself is the following night at 7pm. After that I'll be able to breathe a short time until we go into the rehearsals for The Cut which I think I'll still be tweaking. I've been getting over a cold which seems to be lingering forever. Robert and I just celebrated our 9 year anniversary. We had a magical time; went and saw Arcade Fire (with Calexico) and stayed two nights in a fancy hotel, had dinner at a fancy and wonderful Steakhouse and went shopping and just relaxed. It was great. I wish we were doing it all over this weekend...but alas.

Arcade Fire's The Suburbs

2010-08-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

After the punky, anthem fueled first record, Funeral and the seemingly Springsteen inspired second release, Neon Bible comes Arcade Fire's third album, the transcending The Suburbs. Probably one of my favorite bands of all time, Arcade Fire infuses its musicality with a full, full sound -- epic, haunting, stylish and relentless-- they pound out melodies and art rock prowess with a seemingly effortless nature. While their first two albums seemed to display a varied approach to each song, each album felt almost like concept albums and The Suburbs follows that line even further; each album's title gives away its subject matter quite literally, but also subversively.

The title track rocks with a simple through line and reminds one of the first track on their first album with a tighter, more adult momentum. Arcade Fire seems to be growing up musically yet lyrically much of their wrought with the world still concerns matters of youth. Lead singer Win Butler's wife Regine Chassagne sings more than ever on this record, the best being the Blonde meets Cyndi Lauper infused Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains). And although the album does have this touch of 80's pop/rock to it, it transcends simple clarification. It takes at least 10 listens to adapt to its allure and once it pulls you in, it will keep you there for a while. The highlight comes with Deep Blue where Butler throws off a lot of the Springsteen posturing for a higher vocal in a song that sounds more Bowie-esque with a touch of piano and a reminder of Arcade Fire's more eclectic yet meticulous songwriting. Songs like We Used to Wait give a Spoon or The Cars like flavor while others have an even electronica type quality -- and some such a haunting lilt that they seem almost obscure.

But the best of Arcade Fire's musical and theatrical muscle is displayed on the new album. Coming into the new decade with just as much fire and energy and sense of epic as ever. Its worth those multiple listens.

The end is only the beginning

2010-07-29T10:51:00.000-07:00

I was reading an article today about a film being made about a writer and former politian's life here in Seattle. In fact Robert and I were out one night and they were filming over at The Comet Tavern and we were thinking of going down there to see the movie stars hanging out...of course for a long time we were confused on the star...people kept saying Avatar star...so of course I was thinking of the truly hot guy from the movie, the lead...but no, it was the tall, nerdy scientist friend. Oh, well. Anyway, I found that maybe when he was younger the narcissist part of himself would have found the whole experience mind blowing and exciting and although he still finds it exciting it is almost too surreal of an experience for him to truly reel from it (in fact the article is titled "Wake for my Youth (with actors)". I find that if anyone was going to make a film of my life there are too little aspects from it to make the film truly watchable...I mean I can be quite vain and self-involved, but when I take a step back (a big step back) and look in, there isn't, to me, a lot to find interesting. But then, if I were to start writing it all down...the flood gates might open...my father has always kept a journal of where he was when and he'll pull it out once and a while and just read from some random passage of where he was on some date and time in 1983 and I'll be like, wow, I can't remember where I was yesterday. Oh yeah...well, I suppose that was interesting. But its all subjective right? Maybe the film about Grant Cogswell (above mentioned writer) won't be interesting to me, after all its about politics...but I think a lot of his campaign are issues I would get behind, especially mass transit...(I still hate it by the way, although he thinks its gotten better).

My point is...where we are now is either way up or way down in our own skewed estimation. Usually when someone says "how are you?" (which happens too often by the way, Americans are truly annoying sometimes with their "manners", even though I'm just as guilty as the next guy) -- we don't respond "well, my dog died, my brother is getting divorced and I just threw up my taco" -- we're like "good" or "well" if you want to be gramatical or "okay" or "great, how are you?" -- not, "well, I'm at the point in my life where I wish I was further along than I am". How depressing. No one wants to hear that shit. "Oh, well, sorry to hear that...I just a promotion and going to live in Europe for a year!" Good for you. Asshole.

But we have no one to blame but ourselves. The end is only the beginning. And is always the beginning. Even after death (I hope). There's always another chance to leap onto that horse and ride it into future of our lives...better our lives. We don't have to be perfect to be happy or rich (although I still want to be rich)...finding someone you love keeps you grounded I think and makes things seem less hazy and forlorn. You have that rock, that person that gives you encouragement and love and vice versa. But everyone yearns for some kind of ultimate, seemingly unreachable goal. Where we are now, is it where we want to be? And if someone answers yes, I believe, they're lying. Even the most famous or regal want something a little different. True happiness can be achieved at that stage, but there's always something out there that lingers in their thoughts, kind of a sideline sightline of some achievement yet to be achieved. People without drive still have this. They're just not driven to get there. Over achievers get overwhelmed and their priorities get all mixed up and then they're unhappy because they get all turned around in their success. So what's the true magic solution to find the ultimate happiness and success in life? I don't know. Keeping sane is a priority in my life. Sanity is hard to maintain. (Or maybe I'm mixing sanity and stress together.) Whatever the answer is...it is elusive at best...even the most happy and powerful are sometimes confused as to how they got there...drive sometimes isn't enough, you have to have that special something...what? Sense of purpose I suppose...a remarkable gift at making all your dreams come true.

Right now: Directing a short ten minute play. I haven't directed anything since college. And while I consider myself to still be young, that was a long time ago. I hope I don't piss these actors off.

Next: Finding more actors (mainly looking for men and more men) for a reading of The Cut, an adaptation of a memoir titled Shorn: Toys to Men by Dennis Bensie. We're shooting for August 23rd. The AD is still looking for the right director for the production which will go up in January. (Again Dennis' story is made up of most of his life...how he was able to compile the whole thing into such a lengthy and detailed memoir is pretty amazing...then of course, writing a fictionalized version for the play wasn't and isn't easy...)

Also: Wrapping up the script for the next Lovecraft production, Pickman's Model --with three other writers. It's coming together!

Ah yes...the end is truly only the beginning...

Ruined

2010-07-13T14:47:00.000-07:00

The Cut - first draft is finished. Now working toward a workshop next month. An exhausting, yet rewarding play to write (or adapt) - much more work ahead.

Saw the opening of Ruined at my work about war and rape in the Congo. One of the most amazing pieces of theatre I've ever had the privilege to bear witness. If you live in Seattle, go. It is an absolute must see, must experience experience.

Ruined playing at Intiman Theatre through August. Photo by Chris Bennion.

All Things Considered

2010-06-23T10:12:00.000-07:00

I've finished the first act of my new play and even started on the second. It is an adaptation (don't know if adaptation is the right word) of a memoir, which I have renamed (or actually Robert came up with the title, as he often does, I should just have him come up with all my titles-- The Cut). It is probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. The structure has become clearer and clearer to me as I've been writing. It weaves in and out of time and place (how very me, right?) -- but connects to the main story throughout, because as it is about one man's journey-- the through line is very clear. What wasn't clear to me at first was how to end it, even though it has an ending in the book, its more of a symbolic coming into being-- as to do that one stage may reenact my ending in The Center of the Universe so I wanted a very definite ending. I've also set up a conceit where a non-realistic character in the book comes alive and kind of takes the audience on the journey-- so there will be a particular twist with her at the end as well, as well as a kind of epilogue. I'm not going to go much further at this point in relation to the story or when it will be produced. I can definitely say I'm going to workshop it in late summer. Its been a very arduous journey so far pulling this together. The story has a lot of pain, a lot of suffering-- and a lot of humor and complicated situations as well. And of course for me, as a writer, those are the three things that interest me most-- human suffering, humor and messy complications/contradictions. So...more soon; as fast as I can pound it out!

I'm also (I don't know how yet!) writing another dang Lovecraft. This time with three other writers. I'm going to start writing some of the second act this week-- mainly some dialogue pertaining to one long scene and then I'll let the details come in later from others. But, its got a good synopsis that the others really came up with-- and its solid. I just kept emphasizing over and over --- more scary, more scary!

I saw the ocean for the first time. It was raining though and we didn't stay long. But I took this photo of Robert walking toward the water and its one of my favorite photos ever. There's a quality about it that makes me smile. I see something like this picture and all other things fade into the distance. Everything seems to come together in a moment like that. All things considered, life is a heavy-- yet floating dream.

Better pics of Digging Graves

2010-06-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

Some better pics from Digging Graves...

Digging Graves!

2010-05-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

From left to right: Tom Fraser, Lisa Branham and Lantz Wagner in Digging Graves.

Digging Graves was a hit! Thanks to everyone who was involved, Stone Soup and all the audience members out there! I couldn't have been happier. Back to life in the works...

Play Fest Info

2010-05-07T11:03:00.000-07:00

The perfect fit for Seattle’s only one-act company, 2010’s festival (formerly Outside the Box) brings 16 short, original scripts to the DownStage, including Perspectives by former Seattle Weekly critic John Longenbaugh and the chuckle-inducing Clothing Optional by James Lyle, raising questions about gender double-standards where nudity is concerned. From epic absurdity to the comically criminal and just about everything in between, audiences will experience themes ranging from destruction and plagiarism to birthday suits and second chances.

Set in the DownStage in mid-May, audiences will enjoy a selection of 10 scripts per show selected from over 300 submissions, both local and national, featuring the playwriting talents of Dustin Engstrom, Barbara M. Harkness, Andrew R. Heinze, Vincent Kovar, John Longenbaugh, James Lyle, Joe W. Marciniak, James E. Marlow, Scotto Moore, Tom Moran, Lavinia Roberts, Rich Rubin, Peter Snoad and Carolynne Wilcox. Please be aware that due to adult content and both male and female nudity, parental discretion is advised.

The production runs Thursdays – Sundays, May 13-23. Evening showtimes are 8:00 pm, while Sunday matinees are at 2:00 pm. General admission prices are $15; $13 for those under 30.

Tickets are available for purchase at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/107683, 800-838-3006 or Stone Soup Box Office (206) 633-1883; www.stonesouptheatre.org.

Week One:
Clothing Optional, by James Lyle
Hamlet in Hiding, by Rich Rubin
Waiting, by Vincent Kovar
Fortune Teller, by Carolynne Wilcox
He is Gonna See Stars, by Lavinia Roberts
Duo, by Tom Moran
Perspectives, by John Longenbaugh
That Doesn't Sound Right Anymore by Scotto Moore

Week Two:
Clothing Optional, by James Lyle
Digging Graves, by Dustin Engstrom
The Greening of Bridget Kelly, by Peter Snoad
Top of the Hour, by Kitty Felde
These Walls Can Talk, by Joe W. Marciniak
Acts of Plagiarism, or Pirandellismo or Less, by James E. Marlow
The Bar Mitzvah of Jesus Goldfarb, by Andrew R. Heinze
I Am A Ten-Minute Play, by Barbara M. Harkness
Writer's Block, by Tom Moran

Also featuring the talents of:
Colin Schrieber, Dylan Olson, Stephanie Pulver, Kaylee Cruise, Coral Malean, Alison Mcguire, Mitch Richard Williams, Jake Gath, Brit Neshim, Collin Schreiber, Isaiah Crowson, Jen Moon, Jillian Vashro, Josh Aaseng, Adam Westerman, Wendy Cohen, J.D. Lloyd, Tom Fraser, Lantz Wagner, Lisa Branham, Maureen Hawkins, Laurence Hughes, Rebecca Parker-O’Neill, Chris Scofield, Danielle Villegas, Michael Ramquist, Norm Husser, Norah Elges, Mike Jones, Tyler Kantor, Arlene Martinez-Vazquez, Rozzette deGuzman, Christy Denny, Mike Bowers, Audra Goffeney, Jay Irwin, Telisa Steen, Roy Arauz, Judy Schwanke, Greg Brisendine, Vann Fulfs, Ben Johnson, James Lynch, Eric Olson, Nic Beach, Keridwyn Deller, Lorrie Fargo, Ron Richardson, Zachariah Robinson, Alexandra Novotny, James Lyle, Kristina Haupftfeuhrer, Mari Geasair, Persephone Vandegrift, Elizabeth Deutsch, Paul Walk, Christopher Martinez, Suzannah Rogan, Bill Badgley, Molly Tomhave, Jeffrey Evans and many more!

Play Festival

2010-05-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

Stone Soup has updated their site with info on the play festival. Watched the first run through(s) with the actors off book last night. Its really coming together really fast (well, its only 20 minutes). They're fantastic! I couldn't be more happy. (Link above)

The commons links

2010-05-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

I think there is common link between people that people overlook. We all have different emotive values to "things". Ie. I don't like rain. I love rain. It depends on my mood. / Right now, I could do without rain. But normally I do like rain. Except when it seeps into my new shoes and I get very angry.

Maybe time will tell.

I mean, I have a distaste for thin people. And a distaste for thin people who are bigots toward overweight people. I don't have a distaste for thin people who didn't try hard to be thin; ie. sickness or metabolism, etc. But I know I'm not in the majority in the U.S. People strive hard to be thin. I just don't find it attractive. And people who constantly like to bark at me or my partner for being fat can go fuck themselves. I like bears. I'm not going to change one day and want some romance cover hunk or rail thin model ad. But...I see the link between what people think they want, who they perceive themselves to be and who they really are. I didn't always think I was comfortable being the way I am. I always wanted to be thinner. When I gave up on that silly ideal, I FINALLY become HAPPY! No one perceives me that way. But that's how I perceive my world now. It's much more calm. I don't want to kill myself or drink or do drugs until I'm numb with no feeling at all because I'm not thin or heterosexual. I'm comfortable with who I am. So I should be comfortable with who others are, right? Well, maybe I can be. Maybe they can be comfortable with who I am. Maybe we're all searching for the right "us". But what version is the most...satisfying? Would I look better thin to my family, for example? I'm sure I would. Would I look better thin to another bear? Probably not. Would I find life more healthy being thin. Maybe. Would I feel better about myself. No. I would be disgusted. But then there are times I think. Well, what if I were to become famous and live in Hollywood or somewhere and have a personal trainer and HAVE to look and be thin to fit into the lifestyle? Well, maybe I wouldn't want that anymore. Maybe I would, if I wanted to sacrifice my happiness for a career. Maybe maybe maybe.

I do and don't like what I do and don't like. And others like and don't like what they like and don't like. Environment changes a person. People change people. People evolve and act in sometimes mundane or mysterious ways. But we're all linked. Linked by the commonality that we're all human. We're all searching. We're all living in the same world, at the same time-- trying to be what we want ourselves to be-- what we want our loved ones to be-- what we want the world to be. In our own worlds. And in our own time. I can neither condone or hate what other people are or do or want to be. I can only be me.

Another example is what I wrote in another blog. The show about to open at my work is about faith. I talk about my experiences in the story section. I encourage you to do the same.

http://thethinplace.com/

2010-04-22T12:09:00.000-07:00

Above from top: My sister & Robert--my parents and me and Robert--

Robert and my brother-in-law-- and Robert, my mom and dad and uncle.

Robert and I just returned from a trip to Minnesota to see my family. Some photos above. Also had the first blocking rehearsal for Digging Graves. Couldn't be happier with the director and the cast. One photo below.

From left: Director J.D. Lloyd, actors Tom Fraser, Lisa Branham and Lantz Wagner

rehearse my short play Digging Graves for a playwrights festival in May.

Link to tickets: Fouth Annual One Act Playfest

Moon & Titans

2010-04-07T11:13:00.000-07:00

Duncan Jones' Moon was a visionary effort with a knock-out performance by actor Sam Rockwell. I wanted to see the film as Duncan Jones is David Bowie's son (Duncan is his middle name and Jones is Bowie's real last name--rather than go by Zowie or Joey anymore!). And the sci-fi aspect of the film intrigued me as it looked like a kind of space thriller with a lot of mood and creeping pace. Well, yes, it has a lot of that but was also not what I was expecting. As Robert commented to me, it looked like a newer version of 2001, A Space Odyssey which of course makes you again think of his father's debut as well, A Space Oddity. I had seen an interview with Jones when the film came out and he commented that he wanted his first feature film to embody the kind of science fiction he and his father watched when he was growing up; the kind of adult thinking films of late 70's. Which also puts me into mind of Bowie's turn as an alien in The Man Who Fell to Earth (one of the most surreal and captivating science fiction films ever made by the way--although the book is pretty damn good too). All this must of had made Jones primed to make a film in that caliber and that realm of film making. If he didn't inherit his father's musicality, he certainly inherited his sense of style and intelligence, as Bowie's music has a kind of eccentricity that usually only fellow artists take high note of, the general public (unless its Let's Dance) shies away from. Jones' film tends to have an equal standing in all these things. Its a taut thriller, but also a mood piece and an actor's showcase. A man is stationed on the moon for three years alone with only a robot (voiced with a creepy calm by Kevin Spacey). He's about to go home back to Earth after his 3 year mission and just 2 weeks away he starts seeing things, hearing things and gets into a crash out on the crater and when he wakes up all sorts of bad realizations begin to unfold. Unfortunately, once the conceit of the film is revealed-- maybe half way through-- the creepy, what's going on feeling of the film slow expires and you're left with only, what's he going to do? Which, I guess is compelling, but not quite as compelling as the build up of the mystery that sets the tone and atmosphere for the film. Nonetheless, its a promising beginning for Jones, who won a BAFTA for Moon as most outstanding debut of a British director.

Robert's friend and his girlfriend and I all had dinner one night and watched the original Clash of the Titans from the early 1980's. I remember being pulled into that film as a kid and thinking it was so fantastic and cool. Our plan was to then go see on another weekend, the remake currently in theaters. All in all, in most every aspect I was disappointed with both films. I certainly haven't retained as much Greek Mythology as the others had because they all kept complaining about how they got the myths all twisted up in both films and did consistently stupid things. The original was probably most known for its animation effects, which of course now look horribly hokey. I could be less of a pessimist and say there was at least the element of adventure and thrill in the films. I could say that for the original. In the remake though Sam Worthington seems so angry and pissy most of the time you longed for his dim-witted warrior character from Avatar. His moodiness I suppose is meant to capture your heart for the difference is Perseus in this film has had his entire adopted family killed by Hades (played with too much Voldemort similarity by Ralph Fines). In the original Perseus goes on the quest simply to save a princess he's become smitten with and in this film, Perseus is out for revenge, so the stakes are a little more dangerous and cutting, but that mentality doesn't quite seep into the rest of the film (although its obvious it really does try to). There are some homages to the original in the remake, such as Perseus pulling out the mechanical owl in what appears to be a Greek warrior locker room and when he asks what it is to another warrior, he just tells him to leave it. Cute. And most of the "monsters" from the original are there; Medusa, the Kraken, the Witches, the Scorpions, etc. But most of the time they are so overexposed that the facet of mystery is completely sucked out of the film and it just becomes a giant video game experience for ten year old boys. At least the original had a sense of imagination. The remake just seems to have a sense (or want) to rake in money at the box office. Its so Hollywood that you feel like you're just watching one long commercial for a movie you might rent in a year and fall asleep to. Bad dialogue doesn't always bother me, if there is some tongue in cheek in there somewhere, but when Perseus gives a speech about standing up and fighting the gods and looks at a poor choice addition of a djinn and says and you and you and "whatever the hell you are" I kind of fell out of the movie entirely. Good special effects but nothing we haven't seen lately in five other recent films. And when Perseus gets on Pegasus at the end you are again reminded of Avatar and not the original film. Its too superficial and with too much action and not enough triumph of spirit and otherworldly magic that the first film seemed to capture for a different generation. The new version was just a gigantic disappointment. Big budget filmmakers in America today need to start hiring better writers and not better effects teams. I think effects have gotten to such a high level that plot and character are low on the list of demands when it comes to shucking out a bombast of stupidity as this films delivers. During most of the film, because they had gotten so many things so wrong, I wished I was at home watching reality TV. My white cherry Icee was more fun to gulp down.

Private Lives of Eskimos

2010-03-22T14:12:00.000-07:00

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ESKIMOS AT

OPEN CIRCLE THEATER , Seattle, WA

See it. See it now. It's an outstanding production.

Comi-Con & films, etc.

2010-03-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

Robert and I traveled to the Emerald City Comi-Con this weekend. I put out some postcards for the current OCT show and we walked around the exhibit area and bought some comics and things (including a graphic novelization of George Martin's novella prequel to Song of Ice & Fire called the The Hedge Knight which I got for half off). It was an interesting day but not nearly as exciting as I'd hoped it would be. You have to go to California for the more interesting panels and exhibits I suppose. But even so, we did get in one line for an exhibit and then left because it seemed a mile long. So many people, hundreds or thousands, I don't know. I didn't know there were that many geeks in Seattle. Well, yes I did-- it's just not so often they're all in one place. There were many costumed fans of course (see a pic below) and many of them were good, others embarrassing, and many cute or funny. What kind of astounded me were how many young families there were. I suppose since I never found myself hooked into comics as a kid (where I would have bought them where I grew up is beyond me for one thing-- I don't think anywhere in my home town would have sold them)-- unlike Robert who bought a bunch of old comics from his childhood-- I guess I don't have a context in which to put a mommy and daddy with a stroller for two roaming around a convention built for fantasy and escapism. Lots and lots of children and parents where I expected just gobs of overgrown adults fluttering around like it was their own magic kingdom-- which there were too. But I guess despite the brave costumed heroes, I found the whole thing rather normal. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time, and I'd go again, just for the people watching and possible deals and more free stuff. Thinking about Sukura Con now-- the anime convention coming in April... I imagine that will much different... or maybe not.

Robert and I also saw Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Now, while visually it is a good looking film (maybe too good looking), Burton and team decided the original novels' story lines weren't really story lines as dreams and in dreams there are no plot points or linear thinking, so they moved ahead where Alice is 19 and being pushed into an arranged marriage so as she's about to answer she follows the white rabbit down a hole again and back into wonderland (or underland as the inhabitants call it). The Red Queen (a mixture of the Queen of Hearts and Red Queen from the books) has now given way to a kind of totalitarian rule over the land and there is some kind of prophesy of Alice returning and killing the Jaberwocky (the dragon like shadow in the second novel) which the Red Queen controls. The problem with trying to make a plot with the characters of wonderland is that you never get to know them. In the novels, Alice stops and chats with these creatures one or a few at a time, and you get to know their quirks and personalities, but here, Burton is assuming everyone knows them enough already and moves them quickly through a parade of momentum and modern action sequences. While his assumption is probably correct (who doesn't know the characters of wonderland)-- you still need to get to know these versions. Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter is turned into a kind of Oz-like Scarecrow rather than Mad Hatter. He's lovable, sympathetic and even heroic. As the hatter in the books was crazy of course and a big selfish coward. With all that said, I did enjoy watching the film (especially in 3D) and I had to keep in mind all these characters were supposed to have changed because the Red Queen's rule (played pitch perfectly by the way by Helena Bonham Carter). Alice seems lifeless though. Even when she's determined and fighting for her life (in more than one way in reality and in underland) -- she just seems sullen and passionless. I would have hoped for more weirdness and less flashiness in the film. So much action made me think of Depp's Pirates pictures and even he seems to create a kind of similar character here. Your grandmother's Alice in Wonderland this is not. But maybe I prefer that and that's why I couldn't fully fall in love with Burton's overblown Hollywood version. If Burton had made this film ten years ago on a smaller budget, I think it would have been lovely. Too much money can sometimes deter a film from a larger potential. Avatar succeeded without good writing-- just a good premise. Here, they have a great premise and great characters, but somehow the writing and storytelling got in the way of a good film. It's in there somewhere.

As far as the Oscars went, I found them oddly and awkwardly produced and wasn't in love with the choices. Except for Chrisoph Waltz in Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds. He deserved all the awards bestowed upon him. The film was a meticulous and suspenseful revenge flick with typical Tarantino flourishes, but Waltz's performance is so watchable and captivating, you can't help but love the film for everything it does and is.

CAT

2010-02-26T14:15:00.000-08:00

There's a bulldozer bulldozing outside the window. CAT it says on its side. Seems more like a snake with claws. It's gray and its ending. The loose life lips locking on nothing. BOOM. Shaky ground. Like a cheap motel.

Besides, what's more than something other than not knowing who you are when you wake up other than a shake off...too / still. What happened?

Feeling like a weasel, dressed like a mule. Scrawling up sideways. The gulls are flapping screams.

Left over. Yesterday's news every direction in every eye and ear hole.

I saw a shape-shifting phantom in the dead(s) of night. Pulling up like cotton-- wet too / searing the plate.

All of us inclined on inclining on lazy hours that float past us like whispering priests squirting venom in child's ears.... it'll all be over soon.... this life... this guilty conscious... this god.... this way to the feed store... storing up on tattoos and cream soda.... floating past the directional signs... "this way to that" and so on until you're there or here and wherever.... and up on out and on and on and wherever there may be another breathing, living... food like livers.... cold up in Alaska... hide away like a gift from the sky/oblivion.

Moose licks. Sticky and c--alm. Grasping the inevitable. So "how's your phantom?" How's my what?

He's okay I guess.

He is?

Yeah.

What's he doing?

Nothing.

Nothing?

Just sitting here.

Hm.

Listening.

Listening to what?

Us.

And?

He's thinking.

It over?

I don't know exactly.

Why are you here?

To sit and wait for nothing.

Not an easy prize to wait on.

It's not a prize if its nothing.

True.

What do you do?

Something I suppose.

Being?

Work.

Work on...?

Work on living.

Living is an illusion.

Like the phantom?

Possibly.

I'm aware of being aware. Is that French?

You're always talking about something. But I think--

You think its nothing then?

Seriously.

Who wears hats like that anymore?

Puppies and slippery sloppy.

It's all in the head. Traversing in roads and long drives/

I'm aware.

Let's go to bed.

Tired?

A little.

He's awake.

Huh.

------------------------------------------ and they rode the horse until dawn spread its wings open to the world.

Hurried and facinated.

Talk and talk and talk and talk and more talk.

They all want to be famous. What's famous? Money? Connections?

I want to be heard!

Heard. What's being heard?

Shut up. They move in circles. Tight circles. Like chickens or hens or whatever the hell. They pass the disease from one place to another. And shake the net -- shake / shake / shake /

And Oh I think spill it. Fall through the holes- of the net. Right. Stop.

And how do you become famous if you're hanging on too tight to do ing nothing to resolve the fact that you don't care enough for glory?

I care about it when I'm sitting there. Sitting and sitting and sitting there.

Purposeful movements. Like a CAT.

Dig and push and shove and up and up and down and down. Pressure like steam being released. Hoses of sprinklers. And shooting up like stars falling down.

I don't know about you but I'm thinking about walking out right now and telling that bitch where to go.

Oh, I know.

She gets on my last nerve.

GIRL.

I heard she didn't like his show.

No!

Yep.

Of all the...

...right?

Oh, gosh.

Coming up on three years.

He's so good. I mean, right?

Totally.

I was worried about him.

Me too. You know how he is.

Oh, girl, you don't have to tell me.

[*finger snap*]

I like your fire.

Burning bright, huh?

Showers of bright.

Into a hollow highway.-----------------

There's that CAT again. Moving downward dog.

They've built a wall to put flowers on. Sit sit pretty dead things.

Swim swim people who get crushed by snaky claws and don't come out until its for sure OKay.

Pictures of stories and stories that were made up.

All the way down here. Don't be alone.

Alone and nothing works for time but his belt because it locks into place.

And then they ran into the shelter and sheltered them for a good. While.

Fragmented pieces of glass sliding-- out. Where did you go?

OVER HERE.

They left their dog to shoot his own dismissive, passive-aggressive nature.

Oh/ ?

I thought you were listening.

About the phantom.

Oh, he's okay, I guess. He talks a lot about his observances now.

Really? Such as?

Oh that time is just something people made up to process movement.

Well, obviously.

And god too.

Well...I shouldn't talk about that.

Why not?

Well.

Yes?

God likes me a lot.

Oh, you know god?

Yes. And its God by the way.

Sorry.

That's okay. / I don't like this phantom much.

Because of g-- sorry, God?

Did I say that?

No. Did you?

No.

Oh.

What did he say anyway?

About what?

God.

Oh-- I don't know really. Made up.

Made UP. Like a drag queen?

No. Like not real.

How does he know?

God?

No, the phantom.

Oh, just what he observed.

Philosophy.

I suppose.

I heard about the CAT and the mouse. He threw it up.

The beginning of time (or whichever end)

2010-02-03T10:50:00.000-08:00

Thought I would blog about my life for a change-- lately I just seem to write film reviews, although while gratifying, don't really mean anything other than people seem to respond positively to them or think I'm full of it and write with too many flourishes. Whichever end you're on, I just enjoy doing it I suppose. Right now I'm reading the Sookie Stackhouse novels, switching from Song of Ice and Fire because it was getting too long again (for me at this time). But it seems to me that when I find a good series to read and immerse myself in, I want to do nothing else but read. Robert and I have taken a new lease on life it seems. He's made some extraordinary meals, of which I'm constantly fortunate to be blessed with-- but we both seem lighter, happier. We had a good weekend, walking around Ballard, shopping, eating, doing ordinary, seemingly mundane things-- yet to us, we seemed to enjoy it more than usual. There's a tendency to feel trapped sometimes in where you are, what you do, what your means are, etc. But lately, we feel more free in our decisions, our life. Things are what they are and you keep moving forward, just try to better yourself along the way. There are people out there in the world that will try to slow you down. And I've come to realize over the last week or so that these people are going through that struggle, that turmoil of "why am I here" and their self esteem is low enough that they try to bring you down into the muck with them. Kind of like a school yard bully I suppose. They mean to make you feel inferior and shame you into thinking you're not worth the air you breathe. Since the beginning of time there have been such people wasting the planet. But-- and maybe needless to say-- we've all been there on that side at one time or another. I also have realized though-- and maybe just this morning when I was listening to Damien Rice on my iPhone and distantly feeling like I was being swallowed by the bus' rhythm and droning-- that I don't want to live in regret anymore. I can be sorry for some of my choices, but they were my choices. I have to live them. And I'm happy to say that I don't regret them. I'm happy to say that I love my partner unconditionally--without any wavering whatsoever. I'm happy to say that, although sometimes I feel like I'm going nowhere-- I love my job and what I do, and I also love to write and continue to hold on to the idea that regardless of where or who and whatnot-- sees, hears, reads my work-- that as long as it keeps me motivated, that I can be happy. All the people that complain and whine and nay-say-- the people that are disrespectful of others, who do not listen, who do not care for human emotion-- all those people are not worth anyone's time or energy-- they are not to be regarded with respect in return. But they are human, and to be human is to error, right? Apologize and feeling contrite is what I feel like doing all the time-- to everyone at every moment. But I'm invisible. I feel like I'm so quiet on the outside, but a raging monster on the inside that could attack given the right provocation. And I can, and I have. Taming the beast isn't easy. There's no need to look to drugs or alcohol. There's no need to constantly crave sex to fill some hole. I read, I write-- those are my therapies. But most of all, just having Robert in my life in whatever capacity-- makes life worth waking up to. I try to ignore the pains of realism-- but its better to just face up to them. My mother has been sick for a long time. And I'm half a country away from her. The guilt I feel is profound. But I soldier through and make an effort to constantly be engaged in what's going on with my family (and now planning a trip back home with Robert-- the first time he's been back since his accident there). And I think I've finally, after 8+ years, gotten closer to Robert's parents. And I'm writing an adaptation which is very difficult and challenging-- but it's what I need right now to push me harder and keep me focused. Robert is happy with the challenges he has in his life for a change too-- I thinking turning 40 opened his eyes and his heart wide open and he's committed to wanting to try his hand at his own business which I think is remarkable and scary and wonderful all at the same time.

So since of the beginning of time, life has had its challenges. People have been cruel to one another and have had to defend what is theirs in an effort to stay sane. People have made life difficult for others and thrown road blocks in the way. People have turned to many different types of coping to get through-- religion, drugs-- what have you-- but I think just clearing your mind of all the clutter, all the hate, the regret, the hurt, the negative thoughts-- you feel free-- you feel more alive. There isn't this constant nagging that won't let go. You have to let go of things sometimes to be able to move forward positively. I used to think of myself as Buddhist and started to sway away from it, because it was too difficult for me. I'm rather mad at the world and people's choices quite often. I don't like Minnesota because I think the people there aren't real to one another. I don't like Christians because I think they are fascists and I find religious hypocrisy repulsive and un-human. I don't like people who throw stones, but I throw them right back. And that's hypocritical in itself. We are often too blind to see our own faults. We believe we are doing the right thing, when there is no "right" thing. No black and white, cut and dry. There is only hope. Hope to bring about peace in one's own life and hope that spreads outward on to others. People don't have patience for conflict anymore, they feel they are entitled to their opinion alone. I have met many people that I loved and cherish very much from Minnesota. I have met many strong willed, yet honest and good Christians. There are many gays and lesbians that I don't care for because of the way they conduct themselves. But again, life is a double sided mirror.

Whichever end of the spectrum of life we live on-- whatever our beliefs are-- whoever we may love or not love-- whatever stones get thrown or thrown back-- the ripple continues down the line-- but to step out of the stream-- to think, to ponder our motivations and questions of faith-- realizations of existing with our fellow humans in the first place-- may make us better humans. Forgive ourselves, no regrets. Forgive others, no vehement standards. After all: life is for the living, not the dead. Unless you're a vampire.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

2010-01-27T11:29:00.000-08:00

Waits and Plummer in Gilliam's Parnassus

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Terry Gilliam's latest film is a fall back to his Brazil and Baron Munchausen days of film-making-- and for good reason-- he uses the same screenwriter of those two films on this one. For that reason, the plot is slight, but the imagery is outstanding and fun and the performances are scattered and bizarre. It is maybe most note worthy as being Heath Ledger's last screen performance (he died toward the end of filming). So Gilliam took longer than he normally languishes on a film due to loosing a key player in the film. Because Ledger's character Tony is a mystery-- and his adventures in Doctor Parnassus' world change based on what his motives are-- Gilliam and team brought in three other Hollywood heartthrobs to fill in the gaps-- Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Collin Farrell. The result is actually seamless and engaging without feeling like it was a hole that needed filling-- but just knowing the facts, makes it hard to think about it otherwise. Ledger's performance is kind of tweakish and the others obviously tried to imitate his qualities to varying results-- but all do an admirable job. Vern Troyer (most known as "mini-me" from the Austin Powers films) is amusing in a side role-- but the film really belongs to Christopher Plummer and Tom Waits (as Parnassus and the Devil)-- Plummer is well suited to Gilliam's style and Waits is perfectly gravely and odd (as is music). Without trying to explain the plot, the result is a perfectly enjoyable and fantastical film that is reminiscent of a Gaiman novel and of course vintage Gilliam. It doesn't bust any brain cells, but it is two hours worth enjoying. Unlike his last film which was very fantastical...but disturbing to say the least...Parnassus is a pure delight...like walking into Hesse's Magic Theatre...

Avatar

2009-12-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

James Cameron's films have often been box office gold (ie- Aliens, Terminator 2, Titanic). His new film, Avatar will probably be the same-- but its the budget of the film that's actually the most intense-- I read somewhere that it boils down to $50K per second-- and when you have a 3 hour long epic-- that's a lot of cash.

So is it good, do I recommend it? A big resounding yes. Is it well plotted, does the dialogue remind you of Mamet? A big no. But it doesn't matter. You aren't going to watch it for its dialogue, you are going to have an epic film experience adventure. And you will, if you just let yourself go and be immersed in it (especially in 3D, which is how I saw it, and you really should see it that way).

What is it about? Well, to boil it down-- its Star Wars meets The Last of the Mohicans. The creatures reminded me some of the new George Lucas films-- except when we walked out of the theater, Robert commented to me-- Cameron makes Lucas look like he doesn't know what he's doing. They are that frickin amazing. Anyway-- So its far off in the future and our Earth is dying or something and a bunch of military, scientists and whatnot are stationed on this jungle planet Pandora trying to mine for something called unobtainium. Like I said, the writing here is a little cliche-- so we get it right away-- a Pandora like box will open-- and they'll never get that rock. But moving on -- the planet is infested with all sorts of mad, dinosaur like creatures -- and the natives are a blueish cat like people that live in this gigantic tree under which are the richest deposits of this unobtanium. So the scientists (led by the always splendid Sigourney Weaver) have made it possible to create these clones, Avatars, of the natives and through some crazy science inhabit their bodies as themselves. So this cripled jarhead's brother dies who was going to inhabit one of these Avatars, so they put him in his place since he has the same DNA being a twin and then he gets lost on the planet and joins the natives and realizes what the military is doing is bad because the natives are awesome etc. etc.-- you get the idea. Its a fairly (well a little more than fairly) far out yet very simple plot-- but what happens about half way through the movie, is that you realize that this is a BIG movie. The action is breathtaking, the effects completely out of this world and you go with it-- you go with this far out invention and you root for the heroes, you hate the bad guys, you love the natives too and you sore with them as the fly, fight, crash, burn and just have a gigantically dizzying and daring time throughout. I was reminded of a much deeper, darker story when watching the film-- a novel called The Sparrow. And although that team of humans was just a few compared to an army-- the "stranger in a strange land" premise gave the same kind of feeling-- the natives don't remind you of aliens-- they capture an essence of Native American and African-- and the concepts of loving the earth, being one with nature is at the heart of the story-- so its like Miyazaki live action -- yet without the female heroine. But there is a love story and its as grand and epic as the film-- the bond the natives have with the earth, the animals, the plants is more than figurative. The "science" in the film is like the science in The Sparrow and what results in our massive technology-- our exploration of things we don't and shouldn't understand always result in violence and chaos. We, as humans are creatures of destruction. And if we would just leave well enough alone, things could be at peace and harmony. So this science is the far out element in the fiction and the fantasy is its giant scope of other-worldliness. Cameron has crafted a film that every walk of life could enjoy-- heart pounding action for the boys, a lovely romance for the girls and an environmental allegory for the intellectuals. And it all works-- amazingly-- as far out as it sounds for me to say so-- its the kind of movie you've been wishing you would see when you walk out of the movies these days. It stays with you-- its big and its loud and its very beautiful and imaginative. For all its many flaws, it was the most finely executed spectacle that you're likely to see for a good long time. Go and be sure to put on those 3D glasses and immerse yourself in the awe that Cameron wants us to see-- forget bad dialogue, cliche character types and symbolic turns of phrase-- the wonder that is created in this film will be lasting-- the kind of Wizard of Oz experience (even "you're not in Kansas anymore" is said at one point) -- that will long be remembered in the history of cinematic vision and craftsmanship-- it reminds us why we go to the movies in the first place.

On the other hand-- I was VASTLY disappointed in the Battlestar Galactica "prequel" I guess you could say-- called The Plan.

Alice

2009-12-14T14:23:00.000-08:00

SyFy's Alice which premiered recently on the cable network, is a re-imagining or maybe adult updating of Lewis Carroll's immortal masterworks Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Its a wonder sometimes why these classics become suddenly popular again as Tim Burton's big budget version of the original books comes out next year with Johnny Depp of course as the Mad Hatter. This story however takes a newly adult Alice with more of a back story than most Wonderland interpretations will give you. She is a martial artist for one thing, which makes her a kick ass female lead which modern audiences enjoy, from both the male and female perspective, but of course for different reasons. Her father disappeared when she was young and she lives with her mother. She brings home a date named Jack who tries to get her to come away to meet his family and give her a ring-- when she says no, he slips the ring into her pocket anyway-- he gets kidnapped in the street and she falls into a mirror, thus another world, and we're in Wonderland. Yet Wonderland is a mixture between a Yerka painting (all those buildings) and a Terry Gilliam or Neil Jordan film. Modern, yet desolate and deteriorating. The mixture of modern (the buildings and doorways) and whimsy (such as the card like casino and the chess like kingdom) may have worked if they had been cohesive, but it comes across as too much disintegration. The period in this world seems to be stuck in the 50s or 60s -- yet with a Magritte/Kafka moment toward the beginning, quickly shifting more in favor of pop dissonance, that treated with the right style could of felt like Twin Peaks, but instead felt cold. There's no real point in explaining the rest of the plot -- it is as clever as it is empty -- and shiftless as it is exciting. Some moments cry out for help, while others are actually really fun and original.

Rather than be a fanciful adaptation as most TV versions have been (British and American alike), this Alice, as many past interpretations have done, cast some big names to help viewers have more of a reason to watch. The biggest disappointment is the casting of the always wonderful Tim Curry as Dodo, in what could only be called a cameo. Its a waste of talent and I can hardly believed Curry agreed to it. Kathy Bates does a decent job with a British accent as the Queen of Hearts while Colm Meany does his best to rid his Irish accent as the King of Hearts. Harry Dean Stanton does a nice job as Caterpillar (dang, he's looking as old as ever) but as with Curry, is given too little screen time. The real stars are the relative unknowns-- Alice, played by Caterina Scorsone who brings a tough yet vulnerable, likableness to the character and Andrew-Lee Potts as Hatter -- who's low-key Ricky Gervais accent/attitude is given weight by his good looks and discernibly different take on the role. But its another famous actor who steals the entire thing: Matt Frewer as the White Knight. It's as if he is channeling Jim Carrey and his own Max Headroom creation-- while you watch him you are at once put in touch with Don Quixote and the actual White Knight from the book. He is the most interesting to watch and most interesting character created for the mini-series. Alas, in the end-- despite some decent effects and pacing, the final verdict isn't quite "off with your head" but doesn't give you a full Cheshire cat smile either.

Where has the time gone? (That old headshot...)

2009-11-25T13:59:00.000-08:00

So...I'm bald. No, its true. Bald. Fat. Going to turn 31 on December 20th. Where has the time gone? But you know-- I'm not so concerned about being an actor anymore, so looks-- not that important, right? And age-- so I'm not exactly at the peek of my theatrical career-- but I work at one of the top ranking professional theaters in the country, meet a lot of interesting, connected people-- and am now a Co-Associate Artistic Director at OCT, the fringe company I volunteer with-- and will be concentrating on developing and cultivating new work-- so that's something...

So...Sheila at work was going through OLD headshots to help clean out the casting files and came across mine-- this is what made me think of all this:

So...a co-worker said I look like a "gay magician". Sheila was nice and said I looked butch. Right. Anyway-- first of all, you can tell its out of date because 1. I have hair (on top of my head!). 2. I'm not nearly so pudgy. 3. Headshots these days are all done in color and almost always have the name attached to the front as well. So...my once failed dream of being a theatrical superstar-- eh. My once full head of hair (especially the very top)...eh.

So what does this really mean? I mean-- do people really have mid-life crisis-es? Not that I am... there are so many people out there that I meet and talk to day to day-- and in my extended family or friends or friends of friends-- etc. and on and on-- that are so much more-- what? messed up-- or not at full potential? I'm not at full potential. I'm a fairly self-described lazy ass. But I have drive when I need it-- and I think a pretty damn good work ethic that was instilled in me by my parents, especially my father. So-- all in all. Things are okay-- right? Time is what it is. You can't stop it. So I'm bald. So I'm going to move passed 30. So I'm a little hefty--- whatever-- I'm here and alive-- I have loving family, friends, co-workers and a doting, loving and affectionate partner who spoils me rotten. What really does one need in life to make them truly happy? I mean, everyone always wants to win the lottery and throw caution to the wind. My caution is the wind. I kind of stick in one place. One partner, one job, one fringe company, one apartment for years now-- Robert and I dream of moving to London. I sometimes wish Seattle wasn't so full of itself. I sometimes wish I wasn't so preoccupied with being cautious about everything. Was more dangerous, more outrageous and carefree-- I think I used to be-- college mostly-- opened me up, pushed me out of the closet and threw me on to some life changing, wild and adulterated adventures. I think after you hit a certain age-- 25 maybe-- you spend the rest of your life wishing you were young again to keep that adventure moving forward or -- maybe relived to some extent so you don't feel so old. I don't want to be 20something again. I think I'm happy to be moving on. But where did all those things that were so important go-- what became of them? Am I so apathetic now that having any kind of goals beyond what I'm doing next week is too much to think about? Some people juggle multiple lives, jobs, kids-- I just want to watch the sunset, write a story, have a drink and sleep until noon. And get fatter and balder and kiss the one I love every single day until I die.

The Prisoner

2009-11-19T13:38:00.000-08:00

AMC's mini-series remake of The Prisoner which finished airing this week was a complicated and mesmerizing series that started out brilliantly yet started to wane in its final episodes. I have never seen the original British late-60's television series, so I don't have the point of reference as many who had and admired that series would. I do however recognize its set up as a familiar Kafkaesque, even Beckett-like scenario: A man (Jim Caviezel) wakes up in a desert oasis of sorts called The Village where everyone is named by a number (his being 6) and run by the loved and feared number 2 (Ian McKellen). Everyone is being watched. There is no place but The Village. Everyone has a job to do, but there seems to be no exchange of money. People can fall in love, start a family. But that's all they can do. The Big Brother type world is not where number 6 believes he belongs and his struggle to return to the "real world" is at the crux of the entire 6 hour running time. This may seem daunting to some, like trying to read Kafka's The Castle which it immediately reminded me of-- but the plot is always throwing out a new mystery that it feels more like a Twilight Zone-ish Twin Peaks than reading a Kafka novel. I've read that the original didn't wrap things up and left everything ambiguous, but in this remake (or really re-imagining from what I can gather from reading about the original) everything is "tied" up-- and that's where things get really complicated. The overall comment seems to be about control-- and not so much on individuality as expressed in the original, but control over your mind. Sanity, drugs, counter-culture (number 2's son is gay and having an affair with 2's henchman -- yet has to kill him-- and yet he doesn't really "exist" but in The Village) -- relationships (6 is the midst of a love triangle but it isn't sure who's real-- him, the women, etc.). It all culminates into a psychobabble something or other that tuned me out rather than in to the final moments. Where I thought it was going to go, it didn't, and where it did go was disappointing and almost too neat, despite the many plot holes its ending would end up leaving (like the holes in The Village). Despite that, it was very entertaining and kept my interest throughout and McKellen is an absolute delight to watch-- he certainly proves once again he is the actor of his generation, moving throughout so effortlessly-- he embodies his character with all kinds of humanity-- which at the heart of the story is its point.

Halloween

2009-11-02T10:24:00.000-08:00

Went out on Friday night...had fun, but then stayed home the rest of the weekend and cleaned the apartment. But we had fun in our costumes...

Where the Wild Things Are

2009-10-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

Remember when you were a kid, like 10 say, and you didn't get what you wanted--or your older sister was more interested in being on the phone or hanging out with her friends then even acknowledging your existence? Or your mother always seemed tired and sad and didn't have time for your every waking second? God, all that was so important and devastating--in your warped little mind, your warped little imagination. There were no bills to pay, no job to go to. But there was stress. And the kind of stress you feel as a kid-- that lonely, desperate longing that seems only partly better through the gifts of your imaginings-- if not properly adhered to, can manifest itself into an aggressive and possibly dangerous behavior. I think I'd have a hard time as a parent explaining the deeper psychological trappings of Spike Jonze's interpretation of the classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are. Leaving the theater, there weren't too many dry eyes on the kids that had come bouncing in before the picture started. What they probably imagined the film to be, and party what I did as well, is a fantastical adventure to some other world where giant monsters ruled the land and to quote the tag line from that chain of kids' pizza joints "where a kid can be a kid". Little did most of us realize, that the psychology of these characters (including the monsters) and the allegorical tone of the book would be much more persuasive than any kind of magical adventure. In that way, the film is more for adults to reflect on how children's lives are shaped and how their selfishness is a deep rooted pain that can fester and go "out of control". All that aside, it's a beautiful looking film. The monsters are fascinating to look at (just as they were in the book when you were a kid) and the voice actors are perfectly wonderful, especially an emotional and likable James Gandolfini and sad and sassy Catherine O'Hara. The kid who plays Max (oddly enough also named Max [Records]) gives a remarkable and motivated performance and will certainly be one to watch in coming years. The music, by Yeah Yeah Yeah's Karen O is partly what also gives the film a different kind of resonance than a typical children's fantasy. Now while a big fan of indie rock (I wish more gays that I know were-- and they could get over their estrogen infused Kylie fixations) the music of the film at times sounds like too much Cat Power or too much Janis Joplin-- yet at either times entirely appropriate and transfixing. I feel like in 20 years, more than anything else, this could have the potential to date the movie when future generations view it. But I'm on the fence on whether a traditional orchestral score would have fixed this. Jonze of course comes from the video making world and has always been on the fence himself of making a Hollywood film and an indie film-- as his films tend to have big stars yet have the story lines and tone of films without stars. The whole thing is a mixed bag-- it is at times funny, at times tremendously heartfelt, at times a wee bit scary (parents shouldn't be afraid to bring young children, yet they may find the whole thing a bit baffling) and yet most of the time feels like a big metaphor for growing up and sometimes so much, it oozes from the screen like too much "this story has a lesson!". Yet its craft outweighs its flaws, as it is a carefully constructed film that obviously cares very much about its subject matter. Its distinctively what it is and what it wants to convey so deeply that it comes across as one of those down the rabbit hole experiences, and although maybe not quite the instant classic such as Spirited Away that essentially uses the same concept, it has the potential to outlive the sum of its parts.

A few MADNESS photos

2009-10-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

Some photos of the show the director put up on Facebook. Hopefully we're getting a photographer to come in soon and do some archive shots. These are pretty good though, I like them.

Tech & Halloween Recommendations

2009-10-05T15:48:00.000-07:00

Tech for MADNESS OUT OF TIME is going extremely well. It's going to be such a good show.

It made me think about Halloween recommendations for films. Here are my top 10 Halloween Horror & Mystery (and some comedy thrown in) recommendations:

10. Night Watch, 2004. It's Russian and its about good and evil and there's crazy violence and lots of crazy stuff going on.

9. The Thin Man, 1934. A comedy mystery classic that started a franchise. But its also just a good movie.

8. The Haunting, 1963. Ray Wise's take on Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Do not watch the remake, it is horrible. Watch this for some of the best use of horror unseen.

7. Dawn of the Dead, 1978. Romero has not made a better movie. This is it, this is the one.

6. Gaslight, 1944. Ingrid Bergman is entirely captivating.

5. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, 2005. This movie is just so damn funny and clever.

4. Rebecca, 1940. It's Hitchcock and it takes a hold of you in a transfixing way.

3. Gosford Park, 2001. I think it is hands down Bob Altman's best film, although there could be some debate. I have watched this movie countless times. Countless times.

2. Blue Velvet, 1986. I still rank this as Lynch's best work. It is the most haunting movie I've ever witnessed.

1. Rosemary's Baby, 1968. Polanski's masterwork. It is the perfect blend of mystery, suspense, horror and comedy. Yes, comedy. If you don't believe me, Ruth Gordon is proof.

(I think I'd also recommend Tim Burton of course...but I couldn't decide on one particular film...)

AIDS Walk

2009-09-28T09:14:00.001-07:00

Robert and I walked in the AIDS Walk this past weekend, on his work's team. It was really fun and really enjoyed it-- and they raised a decent amount of money. We're also on moving 92.5's website too!

15 most influential novels

2009-09-24T17:25:00.001-07:00

Egg and stuff

2009-09-09T10:04:00.000-07:00

Robert and I visited his parents in southern WA and we got pictures of us with the "world's largest egg". Yep. Oh, and his parents' chiwawa. It was nice...now back to real life...

Lovecraft Poster

2009-08-25T16:01:00.001-07:00

I have no idea why Ron's posters turn inside out when I post them on this blog. But there it is. It should be on the website too and I updated my Facebook status with it and it came out normal. It's pretty awesome I think.

Ponyo

2009-08-17T16:29:00.000-07:00

Japan's Hayao Miyazaki has long been on the very top of the list of anime visionaries, particularly when it comes to children. His new film, Ponyo (just released in the U.S. with a handful of famous American actors dubbing the voices) is no different and on some levels is a little different than previous films. The great thing about Miyazaki's pictures is that they are a) full of beautiful and fantastic images and b) are always centered around the characters' journies rather than filling in any large stokes with any kind of nonsensical whimsy. Taken very, very loosly from The Little Mermaid, Ponyo is a very sweet fairytale of a little fish who's father is an underwater wizard of some kind and whose mother is some kind of sea enchantress...it's never really clear, nor does it matter--anyway, she gets swept away and gets picked up by a boy (who lives on a cliff by the sea, which is the subtitle). The little fish becomes obsessed by human life and when her father steals her back under the sea, she escapes, accidently letting loose some kind of typhoon of ecological un-balance. What's great about the story is that is told so seemlessly, almost in a breezy, free way that you feel comfortable with the whole thing immediately. The characters are very easy to like and the animation is lovely (feeling almost like a pastel painting at times). Like some of his earlier films such as Kiki's Delivery Service or My Neighbor Totoro, Ponyo's plot is rather thin and is obviously made for younger viewers unlike his stand out later films Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle. But again, it doesn't matter, the film is so adorable and appealing you can't help but be swept away by it's charm. I recommend going to see it in the theatres while you have a chance.

Movies & Shows

2009-08-13T11:52:00.000-07:00

Movies to watch for: This weekend Miyazaki's new film Ponyo comes out in the U.S. (Robert and I just started a new anime called Last Exile, so far very good) -- also coming soon is Terry Gilliam's new film and Spike Jonze's new film of Where the Wild Things Are.

Back to reading A Clash of Kings and can't believe I ever left it, but I guess I just needed a break from the series. Almost to the end, probably start the next book tomorrow. My mother read this blog when I promoted the first book (A Game of Thrones) and she's read all four already now! And those books are thick. HBO has finished casting the first book! Yippee! Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings) will play Eddard Stark and Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent) will play Tyrion--which is perfect of course--they got the best little person actor to play him (most everyone who's read the books favorite character)! It's gonna be awesome. They begin shooting next month in Ireland. I don't know any of the other names in the cast off hand, but I'm hoping it'll be well done. I think its great they're going to make each book a season...but George R. R. Martin better hurry up and finish the last three books in the series, as of now there are only four published. I don't know how confirmed all these castings are...I guess HBO has yet to release a press release but Martin has been talking about them on his "not a blob" and its all over the news sites.

Cast

2009-08-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

Lovecraft is cast! We're all excited to have that done. Really good cast too. And the script is pretty much ready and should have it ready for actors by the reading next week. Ahh...now I need to get back to work on the memoirs play. Much to do...life goes barreling down the steam of persistence...

Finally Finished - Battlestar Galactica

2009-08-06T09:35:00.000-07:00

Maybe a year or so ago a friend said to me, "Have you been watching Battlestar Galactica?" I said, "No, I don't have cable." Then of course she brought up Netflix. Well, yes I do have that. And now I have cable again as well (which is great because they're doing these planned prequel shows/movies, etc.) She was adament that I watch it. I was surprised because it didn't seem like a show she would like (how naive I was then). Then another friend asked me much later on. I knew him to have watched every single Star Trek there ever was so I assumed this show (a remake of the short running 70's TV show) had a similar agenda: sci/fi spaceships running around on alien planets and talking a bunch of philosophical blibber blabber. So again...I didn't pay attention. Then...a little later after that an IT guy at my work asked me if I'd seen it while fixing my computer. He went on and on about it. Again...I thought, well he's a geek. But then I remember my female friend from way back telling me to watch it. So Robert and I started asking around. Apparently half the world had seen it and we were behind. And now its over and we just finished the whole series from renting it on Netflix.

Now...to say its not science fiction would be a stretch. But true science fiction is a testiment and reflection of man's current time and place in our world. Whether it be political or personal, the genre can trancend many boundries. Edward James Olmos says on the DVD special features, "If a many eyed alien had walked in on set, I would have fainted, got up and walked off set never to return."

And that is what makes the show so compelling. It's a believable show with a far out, yet believable premise. I'm not going to try to begin to explain, but if one were to break it down, its about people, people living their lives in dangerous, heartbreaking situations. Its about life. Pure and simple. An allegory to be sure, but a damn brilliant one. Man vs. machine. Machine vs. man. Man/machine. No, its not terminator. But as Ron Moore (seen above with Olmos), creator of the show explains, if it wasn't about people and their lives and the course of their lives, it wouldn't be the kind of show we wanted people to see. They wanted to reach beyond a certain demographic and compel anyone at any point in their lives, anywhere in the world to relate to it. And I believe they've succeeded. The show is a rollercoaster from start to finish, a space soap opera if you will. Following these characters and their situations becomes such an addiction--unlike anything I've seen on TV (other than Fullmetal Alchemist). Like any good drama, you have those that you root for, those you love, those you love to hate. And when people go, its tragic...you are completely thrown into an emotional cosmos wrapped in good acting, good writing and an often suspensful, often surprising, raw and unconvential--seriously exciting story. Its better than any cold science fiction most non-converts can't relate to...because this is not cold. It is anything but cold. It is a firey, credible and convincing show that will make you stand up and clap, sit down and cry and become a true convert of science fiction even if you never have been. I look forward to whatever comes next in its chronicaling of its epic conceptions, whatever they may be. If they're as good as this series was, they're bound to become a classic just like this already is...literally the moment after you see it. It'll change the way you view television drama and you'll wish everything was as interesting, thought provoking and as momentously thrilling as that of Battlestar Galactica.

Madness getting going...oh, and it's hot

2009-07-29T09:24:00.001-07:00

So we did a read through last night of Madness Out of Time: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward last night at the theater. It went well...the readers and other company members responded to it. Ron and I still have some cleaning up to do...mainly some editing and the director, Gary's idea was to make it a three person play, cut the doctors and have them as voiceovers...which Ron and I both really like, so we're going to tweak and re-tool that. Gary really gets the script and I think his vision will be powerful and creepy creepy as he understands the humor, but is going to play most of it straight. I think we're all very excited...I don't think we've been this excited about a Lovecraft show at Open Circle in a few years as the last couple have been put together so...quickly. We sat in the dressing room/green room because of the heat as it is air conditioned. I met up with Robert and when we got home...man...it was still hotter than hell. And that's literal. It's hot. Today is so supposed to exceed 100 and be the hottest day on Seattle's record. Stay cool...stay.........coooool.

I just like this book cover above. Although, it gives away what we love about the script...you don't see the monster, imagining him is much more scary. Ron's poster is about a half way done and its really amazing.

Trailer / Lovecraft / 5th Ave

2009-07-23T11:45:00.001-07:00

I guess that Alice trailer was pulled by Disney because it was leaked and not supposed to come out yet. But I saw it! I thought it looked a little shady in some ways, not as clean as it should have been.

The Lovecraft play is coming along...Ron and I are nearly there...just a lot of cleaning up. It's going to be really good I think. The second act is going to be a little technical, but damn scary and fun.

I'm heading over to 5th Ave Theatre today to help them out in their efforts to call their patrons about canceling the previews of Catch Me if You Can, their new pre-Broadway musical because of the terrible murder in South Park. My boss has asked a few of us to be reps from Intiman to show our support. Here's an article on the whole grizzly affair (you can find more detailed accounts of the attack online):

The 5th Avenue Theatre has cancelled the first week of previews for the world premiere musical Catch Me If You Can following a death in the family of Tony Award-winning actor Norbert Leo Butz.

The Seattle Times has revealed that Teresa Butz, the 39-year-old sister of Catch Me If You Can star Norbert Leo Butz, was murdered in her Seattle-area home on July 19. Her partner, Jennifer Hopper, was also attacked in the overnight tragedy and has been released from the hospital. The two planned to marry in September, a neighbor informed the paper.

On July 21 representatives for Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre announced that the July 23 and 24 performances of the musical had been cancelled. The remaining weekend performances of Catch Me If You Can have now been cancelled through July 26.

In order to accommodate ticket holders, the 5th Avenue Theatre has added performances on July 28 and 29 at 7:30 PM. Catch Me If You Can is scheduled to play its Seattle world premiere through Aug. 16.

Directed by Jack O'Brien with choreography by Jerry Mitchell, the new musical stars Norbert Leo Butz as FBI Fraud Agent Carl Hanratty, Aaron Tveit as Frank, Tom Wopat as Frank Sr., Kerry Butler as Brenda, Linda Hart as Carol, Rachel deBenedet as Paula, Nick Wyman as Roger and Felicia Finley as Cherll Ann.

Alice Trailer

2009-07-22T13:51:00.000-07:00

The trailer for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland!!! You can't tell really who is in it other than Johnny Depp, but if you go to IMBD the cast list is great. Apparently Burton wanted a fairly unknown and adult actress to play Alice.

Park Show

2009-07-16T09:36:00.001-07:00

Go see the OCT park show (Volunteer Park)...I'm going on Sunday...heard its very funny...

www.octheater.com

Othello Trailer

2009-07-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

Go see OTHELLO at my work...selling fast, so buy early and buy often!

Birthdays / Lovecraft

2009-07-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

Its my dad's birthday today! And Ron at OCT's birthday tomorrow. It was the past Board president's at my work recently. My sister's is coming up. Lots of birthdays going on. Happy Birthday everyone!! (And my friend Dena had her baby! Congrats Dena and Max!)

Working away at the new Lovecraft adaptation with Ron for Open Circle's yearly Lovecraft show. We're adapting his only novella for the Fall, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward but using his original title, Madness Out of Time. Which is more fun. I think Ron wants to use TCOCD as a subtitle still so it is recognizable. It is the only Lovecraft story that I've actually felt followed through more succinctly than others and is very suspenseful and atmospheric (although terribly similar to Thing on the Doorstep in many ways). So this will be the first time since they've starting doing these adapations that they'll have done one full length story adaptation, usually its stories tied together. I'm working on parts of the ending right now...its a little tricky writing about catacombs for the stage and creatures underground and some magician from another time showing up, etc. Gary Zinter will be directing this year. It should be really fun this year...if Ron and I can just get it finished in time.

Iago is the best part of Othello / Facebook

2009-07-09T10:43:00.001-07:00

John Campion as Iago in Othello

Why does Iago hate Othello so much? I don't know, maybe Shakespeare didn't know...but John Campion in my work (Intiman) and Theatre for a New Audience's production of Othello enlivens Iago with a blend I've not seen in Iago before; a more creepy, zany, bizarre malevolence that is not only cruel but unrelentingly and unabashedly without redemption of character. If for any other reason, see it for John's work alone. Go to my work's website at www.intiman.org for more information.

I joined Facebook. For some reason, the thought never occured to me before. People talk about it all the time and it just seemed something I wouldn't be interested, but then, I never really understood what it was about. Robert joined earlier this year and hadn't really invested in it until recently. He signed me up when he signed up and I had tons of friend requests on my hotmail but I didn't understand what they were so I would just delete them. I joined hotmail in 1997 and rarely check it these days other than to connect with old friends. And so when he remembered that he had signed me up a week ago, I have just scraped the surface on really connecting with old friends. It's kind of cool. But right now...I would really need more time to talk to people more consistantly...I'll see if I can get the hang of it...but so far it's been fun.

Link

2009-07-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

I guess the link in my previous post isn't working for people (which is weird because it is for me). But maybe it isn't because the site is copyrighted and you have to buy the pictures, you can't copy or save them. So if you go to Team Photogenic's website which is teamphotogenic (all one word) .com and then go to browse event by date, click on June, then scroll down to June 20th, find Intiman Gala 2009, click on the category of the party and my thumbnails are in the second row.

Gala

2009-07-01T15:55:00.000-07:00

Photos of me at the Gala at my work...I thought I had posed for more, but I guess they didn't turn out or something:

http://www.teamphotogenic.com/event-viewer/thumbs.asp?eid=10051

Pride Float

2009-06-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

My Robert in the Seattle Pride Parade--playing Tracy in Hairspray--they're doing on more show this Friday night at 9:30 at RPlace--the float won best float--they had a great time.

Bart's replacement

2009-06-18T14:34:00.000-07:00

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/whoriskey-to-succeed-sher-at-intiman-theater/

It's happening...Now everyone can know who will be Bart's replacement--they're both here this week doing interviews and prepping for next season--there was an event last night at a Board member's house on Mercer Island, right on the water, it was so beautiful--it was to welcome Kate, etc. and I was working the event. More events today--must dash--Saturday is the big Gala fundraiser (Robert helped me get a suit--it was a relief but a pain)...can not wait until Sunday...

(More articles in the Seattle Times and PI online, was on the front page of the Seattle Times today, also NPR and dozens of other media...big story)

Music, Star Trek, things in waiting (shadows and futures/jaded expectations-outlooks)

2009-06-03T09:48:00.000-07:00

Boldy go.

So I couldn't decide if I should start out this entry (and this time make it an actual entry rather than just blabbering on and posting pictures of my show--it's over!) about the new re-imagining, if you will of Star Trek. There was so much hype surrounding the release and everyone that had gone to the cineplexes on its opening weekend raved and raved on how absolutely great it was. Every time this happens to me, I go in a little jaded (more on that later on) because it's built up so much it can never be the experience I expect. I'd love to tell you that my jaded feelings were squashed (they rarely ever are) but on the other hand I didn't walk away unsatisfied. I don't feel like I need to go into a whole synopsis because while the alternative reality of the storyline makes it easy to have fun with the original characters of the first series of the Star Trek franchise, it also makes it completely accessible to a younger generation of viewers and does not, in any way, shape or form feel dated or stale (and I would never use the word boring to describe it). The strongest part of my recommendation to "boldly go" (I know, but I did it) see this movie is that JJ Abrams (executive producer of many the solid TV enterprise) fashions a film that not only feels new (even being an origin story) but keeps you on the edge of your seat from the very beginning and hardly ever slows down (even when the dialogue turns "trekkie" and becomes a round about explanation of events, it still feels fast and entertaining). The tongue, many times placed in cheek, i.e. Chekov trying to say "victor" to the computer and the computer not recognizing the word because of the accent. All of the actors are well cast and exude all the right motions, albeit, again some of them are new because of the reality bending storyline. Seeing it at Cinerama, some of the scenes were slightly dizzying and quite thrilling--actually bending me back in my seat so I didn't feel like I was going to fall into the action. This is a fresh, daring and just plain all out fun adventure that really anyone that I know, anyone--could go see and enjoy. And that really, is what makes it a cut above the average money grubbing sequel/prequel/remake/re-imagining Hollywood/Broadway/entertainment world we've become. Julie Taymore is making Spiderman into a Broadway musical for goodness sake. I know, I've gone down this road before, nothing is new anymore. It seems we've tapped the creative juices of the universe when it comes to sending legions of crowds to the theaters. Star Trek at least really tried to be different and succeeded on most every possible level.

The greatest band ever?

I picked up two albums the other day...it think it has been a very long time since I've aquired or even paid any attention to music. I've been so consumed with all work on all levels and when I wasn't working in some capacity I was just spending time with Robert and other than putting something on to clean the apartment, we don't listen to music really (when he had his car we did). Anyway--the last Radiohead album, In Rainbows is probably their best since Kid A. And although that album was groundbreaking and tremendously enjoyable, OK Computer has always been considered their classic to live up to. Computer was like a Zeppelin album, filled with ups and downs and a completely realized epic scope. Rainbows is more like Kid A in the fact that it is much more moody, atmospheric experience. Radiohead has always been a favorite group of mine, but it isn't until you really invest listening to their albums multiple times that you realize this English alternative rock band is more than just sum of their parts--their music has been transfixing me since high school and now that its been over 10 years since I left high school I've come to have a greater appreciation for compositions that are a truly more magnanimous than what most people listen to on the radio (I never listen to the radio because I hate it so badly, it really is one of my biggest pet peeves, like nails on a chalkboard--although, nails on a chalkboard would be okay in comparison, doesn't really bother me, nails on a chalkboard, just a scraping sound really, okay, so that was a bad comparison, but you get the idea--NPR I can at least feel informed or enlightened) --ironic, "radiohead" is yet their name (which I believe, if I'm not mistaken comes from Talking Heads, who's band leader, I'm talking about next). The album is like a well designed array of feelings and emotions--some of it being bluesy, some of high energy or even a bit funky, a lot of it, being though a dark yet beautiful place that one wants to wade through and maybe relax in... (water analogies forthcoming, just a warning) ...yet the impression of the tone and feel of the piece is more than just floating down a river of relaxed sentiment--(like the other artist I'll talk about next, Eno and his ambient landscapes)--there are moments of regret, denial, pity even-for the emotions, such as in Nude, "So don't get any big ideas...they're not gonna happen...you'll go to hell...for what your dirty mind is thinking..." or in 15 step, "...you used to be all right...what happened?" But besides what Yorke is singing about, the songs all tumble into each other like mad pieces of crayons--the colors of the rainbow--an empirical distorted view of living and dying, beneath layers and layers of some of the prettiest (right?) songs ever recorded--sad as they are, they really reach deep within and pull out all the stops--its the Radiohead record I've been waiting for since the start of the decade. Here it is, in rainbows.

We may be getting older, but that doesn't us making sense.

David Byrne and Brian Eno. What can you say that wouldn't sound predictably arty or cliche about them. Byrne, a post-modern king of white funk and arthouse aesthetics--Eno, glam rock pioneer turned "father of ambient music"--and rock producer god--had first combined their efforts back with Talking Heads (Eno produced their most solidy detailed albums) back in the 70's when Eno was also helping David Bowie construct a new landscape for his jagged, otherworldly compositions on the Berlin Trilogy (Eno also went on to produce some of U2's biggest albums). Everything that Happens will Happen Today (a collaboration not unlike My Life in the Bush with Ghosts) is what Eno had described as a bunch of songs he left unfinished and Byrne came in to add his flare to and also a kind of "folk electronic gospel". Later Talking Heads had a lot of vocal harmonies, leaving their fast funky society mumbling for a lighter, poppier version of themselves, tapping into the mainstream in the 80's and bubbling the pop landscape with a cockeyed view of the country we live and die and in and the stifling of art, creativity and the democratic world view -- leaving a socialistic nature to their music. A lot of people I know that like Talking Heads, like their music, and don't relate to the often subversive, ironic nature of their messaging. Political would be too vain a word. I suppose that is what attracts Eno to artists like Byrne and Bowie and of course U2--they help shape a cultural landscape--their music is more than just about music--and they make music well--their music is about listening to the pulse of the world and creating stories and moods that divide them from their peers in an almost extreme way. Their songwriting skills are honed and derivitive. But put Byrne and Eno together on an album--it swims through you like a constant memory--and it exceeds most expectations by being clever, alive and keen to its concept without feeling like a concept. You can hear an essence of Eno in every song, particularly when it comes to the sound of the guitar--and Byrne's typical quickly vocalizations are in top form. Home seems almost like an update version of This Must be the Place and the folky My Big Nurse is reminicent of an early Eno piece--while the highlight of the album, Strange Overtones is a combination of what they do best, create rock music with style, wit and energy--a lofty almost prophetic piece of music, the album transends boundries yet stays within the pop medium almost too convincingly.

Closing and lots of photos

2009-05-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

Closing night for COTU went so beautifully--we had a really good sized house, lots of friends and lots and lots of laughter--like a laugh track on a sit com, it was so lovely for the cast to get and their performance was unlike any I had seen the entire run, it was like a brand new show--dynamic and full of tons of energy--it was really great to see and be there for that. We had a wrap party/bbq on Sunday at the Stage Manager's house which was great fun. We each got a disc of photos--there were like 500, here a few too many of my favorites (in no real order):