Monthly Archives: October 2007

Golda, israel

Where are the Phantoms?

The relationship between Israel’s military strength and United States support, technological and financial, has never been so clear to me as it is post-GOLDA. I’ve been reading Oriana Fallaci’s book INTERVIEW WITH HISTORY, where she interviews Meir, Arafat, and Kissinger, among others, and all of them allude to the complexities of the US-Israel connection. As did Ahmadinejad, petulantly, in his Columbia talk. I even overhear people arguing about it at the Civic Center Bart station:

“There are only two countries in the world that have F-14s. You know what they are?”
“What?”
“The US and Israel.”

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Golda

Golda’s Continuing Saga

We had our understudy runthrough yesterday, and then there was another talkback for GOLDA last night, which Aaron, Camille, and Kent Nicholson (new works at Twx) ran. The questions were very determined, and people wanted to keep talking long past the time when we all needed to leave. It’s a topic that you can’t put back in the box.

What was most interesting to me was the woman who asked Aaron, “Why would the Israelis let a Russian-born woman (Golda) be their Prime Minister?” She had the impression that Israel was a much older country than it was, and wasn’t aware that all Israelis are (or were) immigrants.

Our reviews, which came out this week, from the Chronicle and the Merc, were both mixed. I think it’s hard to make a living portrayal of this topic that suits everyone’s tastes. One critic wanted larger characters. One wanted more passion, one less. And so on. I think we’ve created a unique and subtle GOLDA, but who won’t be everyone’s easiest cup of tea to swallow – just like the real woman.

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Golda

Building 260

GOLDA opened on Saturday, and I spent Sunday and Monday staying at 2319, dealing with video returns and bike rack repair. I also walked around Stanford with Murray, giving him the dog’s eye view of the humanities departments.

Today, we continue understudy rehearsals, and I get to be at a talkback for high-school students.

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criticism, quotes, style

“a justification for their pitiable and base existence”

From a fellow formalist. I really like the way that Wolfe, using language, blames the language itself for the use it’s being put to. This is out of a description of a graduate class in theater criticism, at Harvard:

“…He gave them a language they could use with a feeling of authority and knowledge, even when authority and knowledge were lacking to them. It was a dangerous and often very trivial language – a kind of jargonese of art that was coming into use in the world of those days….

But although this jargon was perhaps innocuous enough when rattled off the rattling tongue of some ignorant boy or rattle-pated girl, it could be a very dangerous thing when uttered seriously by men who were trying to achieve the best, the rarest, and the highest life on earth – the life which may be won only by bitter toil and knowledge and stern living – the life of the artist.

And the great danger of this glib and easy jargon of the arts was this: that instead of knowledge, the experience of hard work and patient living, they were given a formula for knowledge; a language that sounded very knowing, expert and assured, and yet that knew nothing, was experienced in nothing, was sure of nothing.

It gave to people without talent and without sincerity of soul or integrity of purpose, with nothing, in fact, except a feeble incapacity for the shock and agony of life, and the desire to escape into a glamorous and unreal world of make believe – a justification for their pitiable and base existence.

It gave to people who had no power in themselves to create anything of merit or of beauty- people who were the true Philistines and enemies of art and of the artist’s living spirit – the language to talk with glib knowingness of things they knew nothing of…”

(Thomas Wolfe, OF TIME AND THE RIVER)

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directing, theater

Matt and Ben

The script of Matt and Ben, the play about Damon and Affleck as written and played by two women, just arrived via UPS. These are the opening words:

(The stage is dark.)
MATT. It’s stealing!
BEN. Adaptation is the highest form of flattery!
MATT. Imitation?
BEN. Yes, Imitation. Adaptation. Yes.

So maybe this is how we can have theater with common cultural references – theater about celebrities, instead of about politicians. Instead of Henry 4 and King Louis.

And this experiment in representing celebrities without actually representing them – not impersonating, not even trying to cast close to them, deliberate cross-racial and cross-gender casting – lends itself so well to theater.

It’s not about re-presentation. It’s not about competing with film.
It’s a form of art and of satire that can only exist on stage.

I love it.

From Sam French’s ridiculously detailed prop lists:
“Large bakery cupcake with vanilla icing (1 per show, should be approximately 3 inches in diameter. If not available, improvise with a large corn muffin and a can of frosting)”

If not available? When is a cupcake not available, after the Cupcake Craze of 2006? One can only hope that at some future time in the universe a cupcake will not be available.

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Golda

Matzah Balls For Everybody!

Yesterday, in the rehearsal before first preview, we did two hours of work notes and what everyone on this production refers to as an “Italian run”, or a speedthrough. I’ve never heard that term before. Apparently it traditionally is without blocking, but we did ours on stage. Camille went through the show in an hour and six minutes! The results were fantastic – our preview yesterday night ran at only 1:37.

The audience said “Shalom” back to Camille when we raised house to half at the end.

Aaron and I had a long talk about future workshopping – he’s asked me to try to take a stab at some more narrative text on the Passover project.

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L'Internet, music

SchumannIsTheMusiciansDaveEggers.com

At the Rose and Crown in Shallow Alto last night with Cliff and Heather. We consumed Chimay, which Heather referred to as “the champagne of beers,” and got into a heated discussion – or, rather, they did – about Beethoven, Bach, and Schumann. Apparently Schumann was sort of like the Dave Eggers of his time? He started a musical journal and was very involved in the criticism scene, but from the perspective of a working artist.

I was texting Zack the entire time with bad domain name names, removed from our conversation.
dreamballet.com
inverseretrograde.com

We are frustrated at not being able to take either transient.com or umbrage.com.

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directing, yes, friendblog

The Unteachable

Trevor Biship, who directed Larry Kramer’s JUST SAY NO at NOTE last year, is teaching undergraduate directing at Cal State Long Beach this fall. I’ve asked him to keep Planet Style apprised of his, and his students’, revelations on the nature of teaching and learning directing as they progress.

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Golda

Leben zolst du, Goldele

Today we ran, out of context, a number of phone-call transitions, then ran the entire show – then had an open dress with a few people in it. (Oh, and I showed up half an hour late because I didn’t read the rehearsal report. Keeping them guessing. ) It was a sweet, small audience, attentive and friendly, and they appreciated Camille.

Tomorrow we’re doing notes and a speedthrough before the first real preview. We’re more than ready for an audience. Golda is such a storyteller, as our process keeps uncovering, and she needs someone to tell the story to.

At Molly Magee’s after the show. It turns out our projection designer went to Stanford, too, and met Condoleeza Rice during a Gaieties one year.

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