My Weak Spot

When I first agreed to become a critic, some 17 years ago, I was unsure of my ability to do the job.  I knew I could write but I had no training, and while I had gone to musicals, especially Gilbert & Sullivan for most of my life, my experience with straight theater was quite limited.  I had never studied playwrights like Ibsen or Wilder, or any of the classic French comedies by Moliere and others.  And I knew I didn't like Shakespeare.  This did not seem to make me the most logical choice for the job.

But I decided to try it and over 17 years, I have seen a lot, learned a lot, and even have learned to enjoy Shakespeare.  We see about 60 shows a year.  My comfort zone is still musical theater, and those reviews come quickly when I get home, but I seem to have been able to express my opinion in an entertaining and helpful manner.  

When I read other critics, I realize that I would never pass in a big city newspaper, but I have had a lot of very positive feedback and I enjoy what I do.  Most of the time.

But I do have an Achilles heel.  I know nothing about dance and am asked twice a year to review a concert given by our local Pamela Trokanski Dance Theatre.  We've known Pamela for most of our time in Davis and the first time she asked me to review one of her shows, I confessed that I knew nothing about dance.  She told me that made me perfect to review her shows, which are intended to appeal to anybody, even people like me.

So I've stumbled through several of her shows and though when I re-read my reviews I sometimes cringe, I think I've managed to serve her well.  But I still never feel comfortable.  I'm always happy when her shows come on a weekend when I have two or three other shows to review and am unable to make it to her performance.

This weekend, we went to her latest fall concert, Turning Corners.  I was all prepared this time.  I took copious notes (none of which I could decipher when I got home!!)  The review is written and submitted but, as always, I feel uncomfortable hoping that I got it right.

The theme for this show is exploring what happens when you look at familiar scenes from a different perspective.  You take the same road to work every day but what happens if you suddenly take a different street.  What will you find? 

(The amazing thing about this group of 8 dancers is that the youngest, young Asher Habicht is only 9 years old.  I don't know how long he has been dancing, but this is the third year I have reviewed him.  He's as talented as the adults with whom he dances.  The oldest in the group is Allegra Silberstein, who is 87 and who has been dancing with Pamela for many years -- both Asher and Allegra are on the right side of this photo)

Trokanski's choreography is always athletic and wonderfully synchronized...and also fun.

We enjoyed the show and were surprised to find one of my colleagues from the News and Review also there, with his wife.  They suggested we go out for dinner together, which we did.  Jim and I know each other only through emails and passing in various theaters.  It was nice to get to know them both a bit more personally over Thai food.

I was so focused on getting the review finished and submitted this morning that I forgot to open the door for the dogs after I fed them and Walt came downstairs to find a gigantic doggie toilet extending from the living room down the hallway.  Lizzie looked embarrassed and I apologized to both her and Walt for forgetting.

28 Days

28 days till the election.  It can't get here soon enough.

So yeah.  I watched the debate.  I also watched the pre-debate talking heads and remember when Brian Williams was interrupted and practically speechless when he went to a press conference Trump was holding with four Clinton accusers.  Really?  None of those women looked particularly happy to be there.  Then he arranged for them to sit in the front row of the VIP: section during the debate

With all that is going on in this country and in the world, this is what Trump wanted to focus on??  Well...yeah.  The first...what?...20 minutes?...was devoted to sex. Trump's sexual misadventures, Bill Clinton's sexual misadventures. I know it is all anybody is talking about, but THIS is the thing the candidates have to debate? Presidential historian Michael Beschloss said this might be the first presidential debate that parents would have to keep their kids from watching.

Trump was determined to dominate this debate and whenever Hillary spoke, he walked behind her and loomed over her, glowering, mic at his mouth ready to interrupt at a moment's notice.

He complained when the moderators "let" her extend her time by 10 seconds and then frequently extended his own time by 30 seconds or more and continued to interrupt her throughout the debate (though admittedly less than he did last time)  He also promised that if he is elected the first thing he will do is to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton and make sure she goes to prison.

In honesty, he was better prepared this time and I suspect if you are a Trump supporter you thought he "won" the debate, while Hillary supporters think she "won."  It was not as clear cut as it was the last time. 

In the past, I have written here about the thing I have observed about men--how they unbutton their jackets when they sit and then button them when they stand up, how talk show hosts button and unbutton their jackets dozens of times during the course of a show.  Trump never buttoned his jacket and he just looked sloppy all night long as he paced around the stage.

I am reading a book about Eleanor Roosevelt right now and she wrote at one point when she was touring the mining towns of West Virginia (first ladies could do that in those days!  She even did it without Secret Service accompaniment) that standing and looking at the poverty and the terrible condition of the families just made her want to cry at the futility of it all (though she actually did quite a bit to alleviate the living conditions of many families).

In watching the debate that's how I felt -- helpless to do anything and feeling on the verge of tears.  I know people who refuse to watch for that reason, but I am unable to turn away.  I do it on compulsion, and always feel worse for it.  In parts of last night, I felt like I'd stumbled upon something very dirty and shameful.

28 days....28 days...28 days...

In other words, I took the day off from Atria again and spent the day at home.  I can't even think of what I did.  I didn't write any letters because it was Sunday and not a mail day.  I didn't work on pocket letters because I finished the last one I was working on on Saturday, on the theme "cute critters."

But I did spend a good portion of the day writing a review for the show we saw last week, Romeo and Juliet.  I had already written a review for the Enterprise, but also had to write one for the News and Review. I have learned, to my surprise, writing the short reviews for News and Review is actually more difficult than writing the longer review (250 vs. 750 words).  When it's a good show  it's fun to ramble on and on about all the good things about it.  But when you have to break that down to only 250 words, then you have to decide what to emphasize and what to ignore.  When it's a Shakespeare play, it is even more difficult because (a) I never studied Shakespeare and don't really like it--though I have gotten better over the past 15 years) and (b) my colleague, who reviews for the local public radio station and occasionally fills in for me when I am unable to do a show, is to Shakespeare when I am to Gilbert & Sullivan.  He loves it.  He travels anywhere he can get to see a show he knows inside out, but wants to see how this company does it in this production.  He told me after the show that it was surprising how much of the script they had cut to tighten things up.  Well, while I can practically recite any G&S show, I wouldn't know whether a script had been cut or not.  His radio review was very professorial and so I was intimidated from the get go, but I did get it written, for good or not.

I get paid more for the shorter reviews, which I initially though was weird, but having done it now for a year, I agree that they are worth more.

And I have to admit that even Shakespeare is a better thing to obsess about than Donald Trump.

Believe it or Not

I sit here this morning and realize I have nothing to say.

 

The bulk of yesterday was spent writing two reviews for the show we saw on Saturday.  It was a good  show, a world premiere of a show called Not Medea about a frazzled mother with a big secret that is eating her alive.  She takes the day off, though it is her day with her daughter, who lives with the father, and attends a performance of Medea.  As her story unfolds, she morphs into the character of Medea and goes in and out of modern day and ancient Greece as she lives the Medea story and explains why she has sympathy for the ancient enchantress.

As you can see from this rather awkward explanation, it's a complicated show -- but an excellent one -- and my job was to review it.  Twice.

When I took the job with the Sacramento newspaper, I was tickled to learn that the reviews would be half (or less) the length of the ones I write for the Davis paper.  Not only that, but the pay for each review would be slightly higher than what I get from the Davis paper.

I love writing for both papers, but it's not as easy as it sounds writing for the Sacramento paper.  I've learned that it's much easier to write long than to write short.  I have lots of room to talk about the show for Davis, but have to condense that into a much smaller space for Sacramento and still get the same points across.  It's easier for some shows than for others.  

There is also a strict format for the Sacramento reviews, with regard to how they are submitted and somehow it just doesn't embed in my head and it takes me nearly as long to format the review as it does to write the damn thing, getting the dates and times into the right format.  It would be easy if it just rolled effortlessly off my head, but it doesn't.  I suppose this is part of my "early dementia."  Things like this don't stick, and I check and re-check and try to get it right...for some reviews I use abbreviations for the days of the week, for others I write the day out.  The press releases list the dates of performance starting with the earliest day of the week, the Sacramento paper starts the dates with the day of publication and puts the earlier dates at the end of the review.  It is ridiculous how much time it takes me to get it right.  The Davis paper does the dates itself from the press releases sent out by the theater itself.

But then when I finally get the Sacramento review written, I go and write a whole new review for the Davis paper.  I am careful not to repeat myself and to make the two reviews different enough that there is little to compare the two.  If I have some brilliant turn of phrase that I use in one, sometimes I will use it in the other, just so everyone can marvel at my cleverness (yes, that's sarcastic), but as a general rule, I want both reviews to be completely different from each other.

Fortunately this doesn't happen often, but often enough.  For a run of the mill show it's a lot easier than for a complicated show like Not Medea.  I realized this was a very. good. show that I wanted to encourage people to see, but it's an odd show and how do I explain that?  I took me literally hours yesterday to get it right for Sacramento...and to do it within 275 words.  I take lots of breaks.  Spend lots of time sitting in a chair and just thinking.  

And then when the review is finally written and submitted to the paper and the other 3 reviewers (and I had a nice compliment from one of the other reviewers, which means so much to me because I really respect his opinion and think he's an excellent writer.  He was at the show too so this compliment was really special), then I have to start all over again and write it for Davis.

I still haven't quite finished the Davis review, though it is about 3/4 finished and the only reason it's not already submitted is that the editor won't see it until tomorrow anyway, so I have time to make sure it really says what I want it to say.  But I actually had a good night of sleep and so my brain should be sharp this morning and finishing it will go easily.

In the middle of all of this is the pressure of The Cleanup.  Ned is coming tomorrow to move my computer into the family room and I must clean everything off of it.  This strikes fear and terror into my heart for several reasons, not the least of which is that some of the crap piled high on the desk are things that I use every day and I have to be sure to move everything in a way that I can find it all when I get moved.  Also, I will only have one desk in the temporarily location and I really need both desks.  AND there is the not small fear that somehow in moving the computer, which means disconnecting it, something will go wrong and it won't be able to be hooked back up again, leaving me without a computer.  I realize that the last fear is silly.  Of course it's going to work, but I want to be out of the house so I don't have to be here while the glitches are being worked out.

Of less importance, but still weighing heavily on my mind is a pocket letter project I'm in the middle of finishing -- which needs stuff I have to move out of my office -- and the letters to Bri and Lacie that I try to write each week, that I haven't written yet.  Those are of such low importance that they really should not be part of my concerns, but just because trying to figure out what I am going to do about them is foremost in my mind, it becomes part of it all, and a distraction from doing everything else.

I am also going to design a Facebook page for a fund raiser Walt is in charge of and that is floating around in the back of my head as well.

So I have nothing to say today (and have said it in a full page) because I didn't do anything yesterday.

Today my cousin is coming to give my mother a pedicure and I am staying away from Atria because I always think it's better to force my mother to interact with a visitor rather than to just sit and listen to the visitor and me talking.  But I am going to meet her at Atria toward the end of her visit (she is going to call me) so I can bring her a painting by my aunt that I found recently during The Cleanup.  This cousin owns a beauty salon and wants to frame it and put it in her salon, since it was done by her grandmother.  We are going to go out for a glass of wine.  Even that has caused some slight tension since I don't do stuff like that and could not think of any place in town where you could go to get a glass of wine (I also don't drink).  Thank goodness for Kari Peterson, who regularly wines and dines in Davis and was able to give me some suggestions of places to go.

Whaddya know.  I wrote a whole entry about nothing.  I'm the blog equivalent of Seinfeld.

Shuckin' and Jivn'

This weekend is definitely calmer than the last two, when I had six shows to review.  I'm only reviewing one show and then have two days off!  Woo hoo!

I had to laugh, though, when I received a promo this afternoon for one of the shows that I reviewed this month.  Theater companies always send out "this show is great! come to see it!" publicity pieces (used to be by mail; now it's e-mail).  In it you find good quotes from reviewers.

I am quoted in this particular publicity piece.  It says "Decidedly Enjoyable" and gives the name of the paper. Actually, my review was luke warm and mostly it pointed out the problems I had with the play, but I did end by saying that because the acting was so good, it was decidedly enjoyable.

I remember when writing promo pieces for the Lamplighters and choosing pull quotes for our own publicity pieces, how we scoured reviews for the sentence, phrase or, like this particularly promo piece, words that made your show sound like a "must see" experience.  A critic could write that something was spectacularly awful and some publicist might pull "spectacular" out of it.  Technically speaking, that word was used, but context is everything! It's why I don't take pull quotes at full value.  I know how they can be manipulated...yes, I said "decidedly enjoyable," but if you read the whole review it doesn't sound as good as that quote makes it sound.

It's all shuckin' and jivin' in the advertising biz.  Just look at Mad Men. 

There is a lot of shuckin' and jivin' going on in this interminable presidential race, in both parties, but especially the Republicans.  My God what else would you call bringing Sarah Palin in to be your spokeswoman?  Her down home delivery and her truths mixed with lies to make whatshisname look good seems, sadly, to be working at least for the devoted following.

I got a kick out of her blaming Obama for the fact that her son is in jail for domestic violence.  Mrs. "Model of Morality for Conservatives," with 3 out of wedlock grandbabies, now says that it's Obama's fault that her son, who fought in the Iraq war under George Bush, developed PTSD and Obama hasn't helped him.  Gimme a break.  (I wonder how she can pin her daughters' out of wedlock pregnancies on the president...I'm sure she can think of a way)

Trump also brought out John Wayne's daughter to a rally, telling the crowds that if her dad was alive, he'd be voting for Trump (as Colbert said, "if he were alive he'd be a 108 white man...sounds about like Trump supporters.")

But than I have to admit that I had to laugh at Hillary.  Sarah gets trotted out to appeal to the brain dead followers of Trump and Hillary trots out 23 year old pop star Demi Lovato to appeal to younger voters.  When did elections stop being about issues of national and international importance and start being about which famous personality you could get to endorse you?

But like with the pull quotes for stage shows, it's all shuckin' and jivin' and doesn't really give you the full picture of anything. 

Down Memory Lane

Char is going through a nostalgia phase right now, based on finding a stash of "Pinata Papers," a newsletter I put out for several years to keep our Pinata family together when we started spreading out around the world and didn't all live within a few blocks of each other any more.

We've been sharing memories and ideas for how to make all the old "Pinata Papers" available to anybody who wants them.  

So many of our memories involved Tiny Tots, the nursery school most of the kids attended.  It was our social hub for years.  The kids went to school there, we had parties there, and since it was a co-op, the fathers took care of the upkeep of the building (and did NOT burn it down, except just a little)

Char reminded me that we wrote a song for the school.  I could only remember the last line of it, and in her next e-mail she came up with the lyrics for the whole song ....

Of all the schools that bear reflection
Unstructured without flaw
Tiny Tots is our selection
We revere her hall

Raise the banner
Wave it madly
Proudly keep her free
Hail to thee, our alma mommy
Hail to thee, TT

That may have been boring for most of you, but there is a handful of people who might enjoy it.

I reviewed two shows this weekend.  When I review a show, I don't like to schmooze.  Some critics do and maybe that is to my detriment, but the thing I hate is having someone ask me "so what did you think" at intermission, especially if I don't like the show.  I also prefer to leave fairly quickly after a show rather than stand around to glad hand with the cast.

One of the plays was at a fairly new to me theater.  I have been there before, but am still learning the ropes.  Additionally there is a new publicity person, who is very friendly, very eager, and wants very much to make sure the critics are accommodated and that our our wishes for photos, etc. are met.

The play was not very good.  Pre-show publicity had indicated all sorts of things none of which were apparent and the critics were unanimous in our muttered comments that we didn't like it.  One called it "a piece of shit" (that probably won't make it into the review!)

So wouldn't you know that it was this night after the show when the publicity person came to greet me and make sure I had everything.  I was also told that my writing was really good and that they enjoyed my reviews very much. One of the big guys (manager or assistant manager or something) also came up, all smiles, telling me how much he enjoyed my writing and asking me how I liked the show.  I told anyone who asked that it was certainly a different kind of show, and, indeed, it was.

It just wasn't a good "different kind of show."

The Four Show Week

We are mid-way through a four show week.

On Tuesday, we saw Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: The Musical, a nice fun romp across the Australian Outback in a bus with 3 drag queens, heading for Alice Springs, where they were hired to so a show by the wife of one of them, so he could meet the 8 year old son he'd never seen.

I had seen the movie when it came out, in 1994 and loved it.  It had glitz and glamor and pathos and it really tugged at the heartstrings.  While the stage show is long on glitz and glamor, it's not quite as long on pathos and while the story is there, it gets kind of swallowed up in all the dance numbers and those fabulous costumes (some 500 of them in this show!).  But I did enjoy it--just not as much as the movie.

We got home at 11:30 and I started writing the review, but was so sleepy, I went to sleep and got up at 3 to finish it, submitting it to the paper at 5:30.   There was a bit of a kerfuffle a day later when there was a misunderstanding about what time I had submitted it to the paper, and also about the photo chosen to run with the review.  I haven't thrown a hissy fit in a long time and even though it was an e-mail hissy fit, it was indeed a hissy fit and I threatened to quit.  But it's all blown over now and things are back where they should be.  The photo disagreement was solved by the paper just running the review with no photo at all.  Sigh.

Today was shopping day.  I went for a "quick" trip to Michael's craft store and, of course, there is no such thing as a "quick" trip through Michael's.  It's also impossible to pick up "just a few things."   Each time I come out feeling like I'm going to have to mortgage the house.  I went there because I'm shopping for the family we are adopting for Christmas and one of the girls is into arts and crafts and I wanted to make that her gift.  And a good half of what I bought was actually for her.  We won't discuss those other little things that happened to make it into the cart.

The good thing is that I had very good coupons and so I saved $20 on the total price, so it's almost like it was a bargain.  Of coure the better bargain would have been if I hadn't gone at all...

From there I spent an hour or so wandering around Costco increasing the amount of that mortage I was going to go home and take out.  There were good free samples, but I had just eaten lunch and actually, other than a couple of things, I passed up most of them.

By the time I got home, though, I was exhausted and while Walt unloaded the car, I read the mail, then put away perishables and climbed into my recliner to go to sleep.  I woke up 2 hours later (I should also add that last night was one of those nights where I was unable to get to sleep, so was running on about 2 hours of sleep and the nap was definitely needed!)

Tonight's show was Oliver! to which we took my mother.   It took several phone call reminders and she still didn't remember, and she must have asked a dozen times what the show was and whether I had ever seen it before.   She remembers seeing Paul in it (though she never did).  But nonetheless, I think she enjoyed it.

Reviewing this theatre company used to be sensitive in the past.   They did excellent shows...and they did embarrassingly bad shows, but the people who run it are some of our oldest friends in Davis and there are lots of people in the community for whom this is their only chance to see musical theater and who love it, and I always tried to be very careful with how I wrote the reviews, so that I was encouraging, but not overly effusive if a show was not very good.

It has been such a delight to realize that in the past few years, I have not really had to be careful about my reviews.  The quality of performance has improved dramatically.  Tonight's was outstanding and it will be a pleasure to write the review.  They have done shows in the recent past that have blown me away with the quality of the final product.  There is still a show or two that sneaks in for which I have to be cautious with how I word things, but 90% of the time, that is no longer a problem.

My mother slept through some of the show, but seemed to enjoy what she did see.  I don't think I'll take her to an evening performance again, though.   I think it's too late for her.

Tomorrow night we are seeing a show called Crazy Horse and Custer, about which I know nothing other than what the title might tell you!  I always enjoy shows at this theater and have no reason to think that this will not be another enjoyable evening.

And then on Sunday, we go to San Francisco for the Lamplighters Gala that I wrote about a couple of days ago. This is a busman's holiday, because I don't have to review it and can just sit back and enjoy it.  It always starts with a silent auction at which a lot of Lamplighters memorabilia goes up for bid, along with crafts made by members of the company and other donated items.  I never bid on anything because I have so much Lamplighters crap in this house already, I don't need any more (in fact, some of the very things that are offered for bid are sometimes hanging on my walls here at home!)  

One year they auctioned off two copies of our histories and I don't think anybody bid on them.  Talk about embarrassng!

But it will be fun to see a good show and know that when I come home, I dont have to write about it! I wonder if New York theater critics ever get tired of going to the theater so often.  I really do, sometimes.

Worst. Show. Ever

I don't usually post reviews I've written here, but instead post them over on Bitter Hack, where I put all my reviews after they've come out.

But since I posted the entry about the then-upcoming production of The Moby Dick Variations, which I was so dreading, I thought it only fair that I post the review I wrote of it last night. I came away with the idea that I'm just not ready for experimental theatre.

Here's the review....

We met someone headed into the Mondavi Theater on Thursday night to see a concert. I told him we were on our way to see "The Moby Dick Variations" in the Vanderhoef Studio theater. "Good luck with that," he said, rolling his eyes.

As I entered the theater, someone spotted me and said "I can hardly wait to read your review of this."

Half an hour into the piece, when I was comparing it to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest" meets "The Snake Pit," I was wondering how I was going to handle it myself.

In an interview with the Cal Aggie earlier this week, director John Zibell described his work, saying "...it’s not a play, it’s 135 little theatrical events inspired by ‘Moby Dick.’" His comment gave me the perfect inspiration for trying to describe this piece...remarking on the "little theatrical events" that I personally took away from the evening.

As promised, this piece (I am reluctant to call it a "play") "breaks every expectation that the audience has when they walk into the show."

For one thing, there is no "audience" section. There are no seats (though a few small, uncomfortable wooden benches line two walls and can accommodate maybe a dozen people). There is a lengthy description of the director’s concept for this work in the program, but it is written in tiny print, in one long paragraph and there is not sufficient lighting in the theater to read it. The audience is expected to mill about and mingle with the performers throughout the two hour performance.

The program lists the twenty-two actors in the production, but there is no indication as to who is playing which role. And it probably doesn’t really matter because there is no real plot that follows any logical linear progression. (I only know that Will Klundt plays Ishmael because he is mentioned in the Aggie article. As to who played Ahab, or Queegqueg, or any other character, it doesn’t really seem to matter since most of the work didn’t really seem to be about Moby Dick anyway.)

At one point I wondered if things would be more clear if I had actually read Moby Dick at some point in my life, but I suspect that would not have helped at all.

For example, I don’t really think a lecture on basketball was written by Herman Melville. And while the scene of a young girl saying goodbye to her dying grandfather was touching, it didn’t have much to do with a white whale.

There was the feel of a frat party about it. Most of the people in the audience seemed to know all the performers and the noise level rose throughout the evening, accompanied by mostly cacophonous instruments playing music written especially for this work by Dylan Bolles and the Thingamajigs Performance Group.

I’m not sure what the girl in the pink lace dress and Superman undershorts was doing on roller skates being pulled through the crowd by someone hanging onto a rope.

Nor am I sure why the woman in the diaphanous gown was hanging from the door frame and then climbing down the outside of a staircase.

It seemed that whenever someone got hold of a microphone and began to say something you could actually understand, three other people in three other parts of the room also began to speak and you couldn’t understand anybody.

At an hour into it, I had a splitting headache, and I was counting down the last minutes of the two hours so I could escape. I hoped that maybe something worth mentioning would happen. But, no.

I finally decided that maybe I’m just too old to appreciate a show like this. Maybe avant garde theater is for the young. But I wasn’t alone. The best overheard quote of the night came from a group leaving the theater whispering to each other "We won’t say ANYTHING until we get to the car, OK?"

They were lucky they didn’t have to go home and write a review.

Body of Knowledge

"I think we dodged a bullet," Walt said to me tonight after he read a review of the show I thought I was supposed to review last weekend. In truth, I had not been looking forward to the show in the first place. The promotional materials all spoke of "audience participation" and this is the sort of thing that makes me run screaming. I am NOT an "audience participation" sort of person. Maybe it enhances some people's enjoyment of a production, but it just strikes fear and terror into my heart. I'm the sort of person who refuses to make eye contact with anybody who is going to come out into the audience and drag some poor hapless soul up on stage to make fun of them. It would be like dying and going to hell for me.

This particular show was a dance show and while I do review dance shows, I freely admitted to Derrick 10 years ago that I have zero expertise in the field of dance. So when she is available, he has, in the past, asked Pamela Trokanski, a local dance instructor to review dance shows. Bruce, the new guy, hadn't told me he had arranged that she would review the show, and he apologized to me for it. I told him that I was thrilled that she was going to be doing it.

When I read her review this evening, I was even MORE thrilled that she had reviewed it. No way in the world could I have written this. It's brilliant, and I wanted to share it with you.

It could have been science, an experiment in human behavior. It could have been art. It could have been groundbreaking. It could have been well-done. It could have been some or none of these, but ultimately it failed, for me, as a memorable experience in performance art.

'Body of Knowledge' is a 90- to 120-minute production, directed and choreographed by Karl Frost, who is pursuing a master of fine arts degree in choreography at UC Davis. The program notes that the work 'sits in the territory between somatic psychology, experimental theater and human ecology.'

It could have been science. Part of the performance is audience participation in an experiment where we were told we could win money. The dancer in charge of my group told us that data was being collected and that Frost had received a grant to study people's behavior.

Was this theater or reality? Was it simply a ploy to keep audience members from walking out, as winners were revealed at the end? Was it an experiment in misdirection? Were we participants in a study that was set in the context of viewing an experimental theater piece?

It could have been art. There was contact improvisation, there were spoken dialogues, there were video projections and recorded sound. All the elements of an artistic 'happening' were in place.

It could have been groundbreaking, but wasn't the night I saw it, at least not as performance art. The program notes implied that a rather edgy experience was about to take place, stating that there might be nudity, or adult content. There was a 'safe' zone established for any audience member who wasn't comfortable interacting with performers. (As my friend pointed out, that only served to make her feel that the rest of the space was unsafe, as if dancers might suddenly grab her.)

But ultimately, there was nothing edgy or new in the work. This kind of experimental theater/performance art has easily been around since the 1960s.

It could have been well done, and some of it was. The scenic design by Gian Scarabino turned the theater space into an interesting maze of small performance areas, forcing audience members to pick and choose what they were viewing. The costume design, by Maggie Chan, was variations of white/cream-colored pants and various tops. Simple, yet effective, it identified the performers and provided contrast, for their movement, against the black floor and curtains.

The video and sound designs, by John Zibell and Sharmi Basu, respectively, helped create various environments that helped construct context or serve as foils for the physical and verbal dialogues. Some of the contact improvisation was very good. I saw two exchanges that were breathtaking. Other exchanges, not so much.

A great deal fell short of its potential. The program noted that the performers were 'individuals engaged in a process of investigation,' and that they were 'less interested in this work as attempt to construct a unified, simple, narrative and more interested in the accident of collage.'

So this became, in my opinion, a crucial element of the work. Improvisation can create wonderful epiphanies of movement and theater, the aforementioned 'accidents of collage.' But while all improvisation has structure, there is still a craft to it, and it shouldn't have an agenda that drives the work.

Unfortunately, there appeared to be an agenda, whether or not it was acknowledged, and that created some clumsy and contrived interactions. There were certainly accidents, but not necessarily ones that made for good theater.

The spoken dialogue didn't always evolve organically from the physical dialogues, and often seemed stilted and unnatural, perhaps because some of the performers found it challenging to both improvise movement and create coherent dialogues simultaneously. An element of really good improvisation is sensitivity to timing. Some interactions went on way too long, and some never developed to a conclusion.

Someone with less experience in performance art might have found it novel. Someone with a background in behavioral science might have found it a unique way to gather data. Ultimately, for me, it became an 'accident waiting to happen,' because there was no real 'aha!' moment.

Of course, as an improvisational work, other performances might be more compelling. I saw opening night and only sections of the entire work. Others will certainly have a very different experience. As my companion, previously concerned about possibly being dragged into an improvisation, said, 'At least we didn't run from the building screaming.'

I can't help but think that if we had, at least it would have been more memorable.

Lucky me--I was at my mother's playing 65 and having birthday cake.

All the World's a Stage

I can't believe I forgot to write my journal entry last night. There have been nights when I haven't done it because of circumstances, but I don't think ever because I forgot. But I always write the next day's entry the night before, so technically the entry I'm writing now is actually for today and I haven't really forgotten anything anyway.

The reason I forgot was that we had been to the theatre that night and the review had to get to the paper before I went to sleep. I was so concentrated on getting that finished that by the time I sent it off, this journal was the last thing on my mind.

The show we attended was Acme Theatre Company's 30th anniversary production of As You Like It, on the outdoor stage at the Davis Art Center. Jeri was in the second (and subsequent) Acme Theatre production when she was in high school and it's hard to realize that the young people's company has now been around for thirty years.

The Memorial Day production is always an outdoor show and is aways free, as a thank you to the town of Davis for all of its support. It used to be held on a stage downtown behind the Pence Art Gallery, but when the gallery expanded, they needed to find a new venue and the stage behind the Davis Art Center is just perfect, with the flat grass for people to sit on and then a hill behind it if you want a better view. There is a bike path that runs between the flat grass and the hill, and cyclists coming through during the show adds an interesting flavor.

This year there was a food truck there selling sandwiches and so we decided to have our dinner in the park before the show.

I had a chicken salad sandwich on foccacia bread and then a cup of strawberries and whipped cream, which was a wonderful light dessert, so much better than the cookies they were selling.

The production this year was very interesting because they decided to make it a "recycle show." They solicited material from the community and then built the set and the costumes out of the recycled materials they gathered. The set, for example, was cardboad boxes and newspaper covered panels.

(Of course when they planned an essentially paper set for a May performance, a time when it's usually quite warm, they had no idea it would RAIN the entire week before the show!) A lot of the boxes across the proscenium arch came from the Girl Scouts, as they were picking up material at the time when the Scouts were finishing their cookie drive and trying to get rid of boxes. Win-win for everyone.

The costumes, too, were made of recycled materials. A long train, for example, was made from a black garbage bag and several pieces of costumes were made of paper or plastic, or of old collections of material that had been donated.

The jexter's costume looked like it was made from old souvenir t-shirts from previous shows.

I absolutely loved how they created the ruffs around the women's necks. This one was made from a Slinky; another one was made from the silver tubing of a dryer exhaust.

There was also a clever use of a lot of ties, making the skirt for this costume. Some sort of a basket weave pattern was used on another costume.

But the element that may have been my very favorite of all, was suddenly discovering when the actress twirled around that one of the ties that formed her over-skirt was actually a Star Trek tie.

The performance was good and there were some surprising elements. Acme always includes music and dancing in its spring show and this one had some solo performers by singers who had extremely good voices.

There was a time when we went to these shows and knew almost everyone there--other parents and grandparents. The director was a teacher, and also a friend of ours. Now the director has retired, the kids are unfamliar and we only recognized one other couple in the audience (neighbors).

But we enjoyed the evening, and when it was over, we packed up our chairs (Walt brought a plastic chair, I had my wonderful new folding camp chair) and we trudged back to the car and home to write the review.

The Snake Pit

I remember seeing the movie The Snake Pit, made in 1948. It stars Olivia deHavilland as a woman who finds herself in an insane asylum and doesn't know how she got there. I don't really remember anything else about it except the final scene, which is an overhead shot of the women in the exercise yard and it looks like...a snake pit.

I thought about that today when I took the puppies up to Petco. They were all there today, all the puppies.

(See the video of the day to get a better feel for what it was like).

I packed our four up and stuck them in the car. They weren't sure what to make of it all.

Dexter (the hairy one with the big ears :)) came along, but wasn't going up for adoption. Instead, he was going to UCD to be neutered. I had to pack him and his medicine, since he's on a special blend that is helping him regrow all that fur. He looks like a dog, now, doesn't he!

The MFL puppies seemed to blend in ok with their siblings, but I noticed that whenever I looked at the cage, they seemed to be hanging out together. And at the end of the day there were fewer puppies--at least one was adopted and another family was filling out paperwork to adopt another, but all three of mine came home again, which I was happy about.

I do miss Dexter, though, and wonder how he's handling the trauma of being in a cage. He's been glued to my body ever since he came here and I know that he is definitely not a happy puppy tonight. I'll also miss having him sleep in my lap tonight.

---

So this evening I decided to be a good guy and we have, unfortunately, suffered the consequences. Several weeks ago, my editor forwarded a message from a guy who wanted The Enterprise to review a show. I thought, from his message, that this was a new theatre company starting up, and I was going to do a story about it and also review his show. (As it turns out, this company has been in existence for quite a long time, but it was the premiere of this musical.)

Well, I never did get around to the story and I actually forgot the opening performance and the second weekend I already had two shows to review and besides, Derrick was loaded with stuff and had no space to put a review. I apologized profusely to the guy and promised him that I would give plenty of space to their next production.

He was very sad because apparently no newspaper had shown any interest. He said that people had expressed sentiments like: "I expected community theater -- this is Broadway quality." and "This play should be running indefinitely in downtown Sacramento." He himself (the author) describes it as "This ambitious world premiere production of a big-cast, big-stage musical, by a local writing team with established reputations, would seem to merit a review, just to provide an assessment of the work." He also said he was 77 years old and probably this would be his very last play.

There was literally nothing I could do to get him reviewed in our paper, but I felt so bad about it all that I told him about my review blog and said that if it would make him feel better, I would review it for the blog. He was thrilled. It meant, of course, that I wasn't being paid to write the review. All I would get were tickets to the show, but at least my guilt would be assuaged. We went to the show tonight. It was held at a high school gymnasium and seats were hard back chairs that killed my back. That was just for starters.

Because I'm not being paid, I was sorely tempted to leave at intermission, but there were only 20 in the audience, and our absence would have been noted. I was also tempted to write and ask him if he's SURE he wants this review. I am reminded of a gawdawful play I saw years ago, written by the late Larry Linville, of M*A*S*H fame. He may have been a good actor, but he was a terrible playwright and not even the red carpet and the presence of his family and his friend Garry Berghoff in the audience could make it a good play.

This one isn't that bad, but let's just say that it's definitely not "Broadway quality"! Because it's amateur theatre, I will be kind in my review, but it may not be what he was hoping for.

And I'll never, ever, ever volunteer to do a freebee just to be a good guy again!

Life and Times

For anyone who grew up, as I did, in the San Francisco of the 1950s, who lived in a nice white neighborhood and went to a nice Catholic school and was vaguely aware of the blaring headlines about raids on gay bars, with photos of men trying to hide their faces as they were pushed into paddy wagons; and who remembers Anita Bryant and the fight to take away civil rights from the gay community and the fundamentalists who brought Proposition 6 (which sought to remove gay teachers and straight people who supported them from their jobs) to California, which was going to be their moment of glory; and who remembers the murder of George Moscone and Harvey Milk and the aftermath -- the candlelight procession, the trial of Dan White, the "Twinkie Defense," the riot after his light sentencing and then his suicide...

...for anybody who was here and remembers that stuff, "Milk" will seem more like a documentary than a biopic. Midway through the film, I realized why Robbie, my hairdresser, said that he didn't want to see the film because he lived through it once and didn't want to relive it.

I wondered how it plays in Peoria, to a group of people who may never have visited San Francisco and who weren't intimately familiar with every single location in the movie, let alone the names of the principle characters. Who may not realize that they have ever met a gay person. I wondered how it played as "just a movie" about a gay guy who was murdered, if you had no connections to the incidents portrayed.

I made a huge mistake before we went to the theatre today. In my haste to get the puppies fed at the last minute so we could be gone for three hours, I forgot to stick some tissues in my purse, so my sweatshirt got a good soaking. I couldn't believe how moved I was by the movie. All of it. From my tears at the start, with Diane Feinstein announcing the murder of Moscone and Milk to the tender parts, to the triumphant parts, and back again to the tragic parts. This is a masterful film.

By the middle of the movie, I was very depressed. It was when John Briggs and Anita Bryant decided to make California the battleground in their fight to remove civil rights from gay people. Proposition 6 ("The Briggs Initiative") was a ballot initiative that would have made the firing of gay teachers -- and straight teachers sympathetic to gays-- mandatory.

I even heard the ludicrous statement made by Briggs in debate with Milk that yes, the greater percentage of pedophiles were heterosexual, but if they could remove all homosexual teachers from the schools, they would at least reduce the number of potential child molestations.

I listened to Bryant's speeches, given with that vacant stare of someone who knows God is on her side and unconcerned about the damage she would do to other human beings. I listened to Briggs equate homosexuality with pedophilia and bestiality. I listened to people in the conservative audiences talk about the need to protect their children from pedophiles.

I thought about where we are now as opposed to where we were in 1978. The gay pride parade is now an annual event, with the entire city participating, pink triangles on Twin Peaks and rainbow flags hung all the way from the Castro District to the Ferry Building. Prop 6 did not pass and discrimination in the workplace or in housing, based on sexual orientation is illegal. Anne Kronenberg, who was Harvey Milk's campaign manager is now Deputy Director for Administration and Planning of the San Francisco Department of Public Health and has worked with the Department for over 15 years.

And when was the last time you heard anything about Anita Bryant?

But California just passed Prop 8, once again removing civil rights from gay people. States all across the country are trying to do the same thing. The arguments used in that ugly battle again compared homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality, parents still feel that they needed to protect their children from the deviant homosexuals.

Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the country, opened the door to a greater acceptance of gay people, but thirty years after his death, many of the same fears and prejudices still exist and the same arguments by the same religious groups are still scaring people into separating human beings into "us" and "them."

How long is it going to take...?

An Artsy-Fartsy Weekend

First of all, you must, must see the new video, "My Rising Up," which I added to "Look at These Videos." The Gay Men's Chorus in San Francisco is going to be performing a cantata of Steve's music in December, but they are doing one of the pieces in their spring concert and Steve took a video of a rehearsal. My god, did this send chills down my spine. And in the middle I actually had tears in my eyes. I don't know if it's because it's that good or if it's because I was imagining what Steve must feel to be watching this. I suspect it's both.

So it's been a three-show weekend, and fortunately all three plays, while quite different from one another, were all pretty good.

We started Friday night with a performance of Measure for Measure at the University. As I have stated ad nauseam in this journal, Shakespeare is not my forte and I knew nothing about this particular play. But I did some studying beforehand so I had a vague idea of what was going on.

I was not prepared, however, for modern dress, electric colored wigs on bump-and-grind dancers, and musical numbers tossed in at random. I could have done without the music, which was forgettable, but the production was pretty good, and the performers were all excellent. The best I can say is that it was a Shakespeare production that kept me awake (of course I don't mention that in a printed review!)

I really, really didn't want to to go see A Number at Capital Theatre Company, which performs on the Delta King riverboat in Old Sacramento. It wasn't that I didn't like the play (which I had never heard of before), or that the theatre company tended to do bad productions. On the contrary, they are one of my favorite groups because they are generally excellent.

No, my reluctance had to do only with the fact that it was a comfortable 78 degrees in the house and an UNcomfortable 100 degrees outside! Going to the show would involve putting on SHOES, and long pants and actually feeling the heat. I'm so very spoiled by air conditioning!

However, it was worth the trip. This is a play by a playwright named Caryl Churchill and has been called "the first 21th century play." It involves the subject of cloning and is a discussion between a father and son, who has just learned that he is a clone...or is he the original? It brings up the question of what makes us who we are. It reminds me of the lyrics to the song in A Chorus Line which says "Who am I anyway? Am I my resume?"

The play is only 65 minutes long, but gives the audience much to ponder at the end of it. And the two actors, Gillen Morrison and Loren Taylor, were simply outstanding.

We ended the weekend with a matinee production of A Streetcar Named Desire at the Woodland Opera House. I've noticed that on three-show weekends, the third show just really seems like going to work, no matter how good it is. This was a matinee, so the senior citizen buses were parked in front of the theatre and at some point Walt announced that I was the youngest person in the place.

I remember when the Lamplighters joked about a "sea of blue hair" at Sunday matinees, though this particular matinee had at least one fellow in the most amazing pompadour that I was sorry I'd forgotten my camera. It was an unnatural gold and piled higher than Elvis', which made me glad that have chosen to age au naturel!

The show itself was pretty good, though it's either the acoustics of the opera house, or all of our aging ears, but there was a gathering of other audience members in front of us at intermission, all complaining about being unable to understand the dialog. One guys said "I can't figure out what's going on...but at least it's a nice way to get out of the house" and then added that "you really can't beat the old musicals!"

We ended the weekend with dinner out at a local restaurant. This is a place that sent me a coupon for a free dinner for two, if I would be one of their "secret shoppers," reporting back how my experience had been -- they contacted me in response to a letter of complaint I had sent about experiences on Easter weekend.

Anyway, we had a wonderful dinner, with starter, wine, salad, entree, and dessert. About 50% more than we would normally eat on a night out, but all was well. Unfortunately, the waitress did not live up to a lot of the picky bits that they ask about on the form (didn't give us information on specials, or offer freshly grated pepper for our salad, or ask if we wanted dessert, or offer coffee when she brought dessert). But I filled out the "secret shopper" form and thanked them for giving us the chance to participate.

So, having now reviewed the restaurant, I'm spending the rest of the evening working on the reviews for the 3 shows.

The Clone Machine

I want a clone machine. I don't want one of those ,machines which clone yourself as a baby so you can watch your self grow up, or clone your dead dog so you can have him again, I just want to duplicate myself when I need to be in two places at the same time. This week it's be in four places at the same time. Where's Gene Roddenberry when I need him?

Normally it's not a problem. I set up my reviewing schedule at the start of the year and there are rarely conflicts.

Right now, however, the touring company of Phantom of the Opera, which would normally open on Wednesday, is coming to Sacramento. But for some reason they've decided to open it on Friday instead, which is the same day that the Acme show, the one I've been doing all the feature article stuff for also opens. There is no publication on Saturday and the Acme show is only one weekend long, so it has to be reviewed on Friday for the review to run on Sunday. Besides, my heart is in this production and I was looking forward to seeing it.

THEN along comes the university which is also opening a show this weekend. That means there are THREE shows I'm supposed to review the same night, one of which I could possibly review on Saturday (since the show runs two weeks), but we had planned to go see Brianna on Saturday.

Making this all much more complicated is that there are a couple of people who substitute for me when I can't review a show, but one of those people is the guy who is directing the Acme show, which means he can't review that show and isn't available to review either of the other two shows either.

With a lot of phone calls and e-mails we finally decided that I'll review the Acme show, while someone does the University show and the touring company decided I can come to Phantom of the Opera on Tuesday. That does mean that if we drive to Santa Barbara we'll have one whole day to spend there, two if we leave to return home at the crack of dawn on Tuesday. Sigh.

But it's worth it. Laurel, who has been wonderful about sending baby photos sent this one of Uncle Norm's first meeting with his great-niece and that makes 16 hours of driving for 1 to 1-1/2 days there all worthwhile.

At least the three shows I have to review this weekend are all on different days. I do Measure for Measure at the university on Friday, A Number on the riverboat in Old Sacramento on Saturday, and Streetcar Named Desire in Woodland on Sunday.

* * *

Now....remember my camera?

No, not this one...this is the newest model of the Panasonic Lumix TZ series, which was released in January. Mine was a TZ3, this is a TZ5 and has more bells and whistles and features than the TZ3 and there is an active discussion group on DPreview.com which looks like it will be very inspiring and informative.

Well, miracle of miracles, the reimbursement check from the rest home arrived today. They seem to have covered everything that was stolen. I thought that it was a little tacky to just send the check with no note of apology, but heck, I'll take the money.

I found the camera at a good sale price on Amazon, and it came with free shipping. So I've ordered it and by this time next week (I hope), I'll have my camera, or a reasonable (better) facimile back again. This one apparently takes better video than the TZ3 did, too, which should be fun to experiment with.

In a way, this is like cloning too...My "old" (all of 3 months old) camera has been cloned into a better model.