Bob and Dan's Theatre Blog

"In Mexico, before the wheel was invented, gangs of slaves had to carry giant stones through the..."

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 20:29:04 -0700

“In Mexico, before the wheel was invented, gangs of slaves had to carry giant stones through the jungle and up the mountains, while their children pulled their toys on tiny rollers. The slaves made the toys, but for centuries failed to make the connection. When good actors play in bad comedies or second-rate musicals, when audiences applaud indifferent classics because they enjoy just the costumes or just the way the sets change, or just the prettiness of the leading actress, there is nothing wrong. But none the less, have they noticed what is underneath the toy they are dragging on a string? It’s a wheel.”

- The Empty Space, Peter Brook

"After he reaches a certain position, the actor does no more homework. Take a young actor, unformed,..."

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 17:19:00 -0700

“After he reaches a certain position, the actor does no more homework. Take a young actor, unformed, underdeveloped, but bursting with talent, full of latent possibilities. Quite rapidly he discovers what he can do, and, after mastering his initial difficulties, with a bit of luck he may find himself in the enviable position of having a job which he loves, doing it well while getting paid and admired at the same time. If he is to develop, the next stage must be to go beyond his apparent range, and begin to explore what really comes hard. But no one has time for this sort of problem. His friends are little use, his parents are unlikely to know much about his art, and his agent, who may be well-meaning and intelligent, is not there to guide him past good offers of good parts towards a vague something else that would be even better. Building a career and artistic development do not necessarily go hand in hand; often the actor, as his career grows, begins to turn in work that gets more and more similar. It is a wretched story, and all the exceptions blur the truth.”

- The Empty Space, Peter Brook

"Myth and theatre are inseparable. As theatre artists, we are mythmakers."

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 08:47:46 -0800

“Myth and theatre are inseparable. As theatre artists, we are mythmakers.”

- Chay Yew (via bobisgoofy)

If you haven't already...

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:08:00 -0800

You should read my review of The Faculty Room by Bridget Carpenter. Fantastic play overall, with great short scenes and a few solid monologues.

SCRIPT REVIEW: The Faculty Room

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 01:20:00 -0800

Adam: You just have to do Good. And the problem is: what’s Good?

Carver: You—You do your best.

Adam: But what if your ”best” isn’t Good? But it’s still your best?

According to Wikipedia (my primary source for information), Bridget Carpenter hasn’t published a play since 2003. And that is a goddamn crime. This is the second play of hers that I’ve read, but it is vaguely similar to the first that I read: Up (The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair)*. Both are incredibly funny when they’re not being emotionally potent; both perform larger time lapses than I’ve ever seen in a play; both make you feel uncomfortably hollow at their end (for different reasons). I’m now officially on a mission to get my hands on more of Carpenter’s work.

The Faculty Room is set in just that: the faculty room of a public high school. I always try to be attuned to the exact moment at which I become engaged in what I’m reading, and in this case that moment occurred even before the start of scene one:

PLACE: An ugly small suburb in an ugly small town somewhere in the middle of the United States of America. It feels like the middle of nowhere. It feels like the center of exactly nothing. It feels like the moon.

The structure of the play is that every scene is a different month of the school year, and I find this both compelling and essential. As the play goes on, we realize how genius it is that Carpenter jumps from plot-point to plot-point; there really is no down time, and we get to see a wide spectrum of these character’s lives instead of only a few day’s or week’s worth. One slightly strange detail is that the final three scenes all take place on a single day in March. This was easy for me to understand as a reader, because the header of every scene denotes the “when”. But as an audience member, it might be a little jarring that up until scene eight, every scene takes place a month after the last and that Carpenter has now decided to change the rules. In addition, because of the structure I was prepared for the play to resolve in April or May, so to me at least the climax seemed awkwardly misplaced.

The characters are phenomenal. There’s Zoe, the sardonic, attractive Theater teacher; Adam, the intense, charismatic man who teaches English and seems to care little for his students; and the new guy, Carver, the World History teacher who is a little too full of school spirit. Of the three, it’s tough to pin down a single “main character”, and this adds to its charm. It really feels like a story about all of them. The minor characters are very minor. Principal Dennis only speaks through the P.A. system, which is hilarious in its own right: he uses different animal sound clips every time he starts or ends an announcement. Plus, the system doubles as a microphone, so characters have conversations with him almost as though conversing with God. There is also Bill, the Ethics teacher who doesn’t speak, and is fondly described in the character list as “Somewhere between 40 and death.”

I really can’t say too much about the plot without giving it away. It moves so quickly that almost everything would be a spoiler, and one of the best things about the play is the way that everything unravels. Here’s a non-descriptive bullet-point list of things that occur:

Zoe and Adam make a joke about dating students in the first scene, and much of the play is made of whether this is strictly a joke or not.
From the beginning of the play (September), Carver is planning Spirit Week which happens in March.
Details about Zoe and Adam’s history are steadily revealed.
A sort-of-cult develops on campus; its fervor grows as the months pass.
Adam finds out more about Carver’s past life than Carver wants anyone to know.
At several points it is clear that the teachers’ behavior mirrors the high school student mindset.

Conclusion: The Faculty Room is a true dark comedy that is sharply funny one moment and sickeningly intense the next, and it does both perfectly. While I didn’t love the ending as much as I could have, I feel that the tenseness of it was lost on me because I was reading the script and not watching the show: there is a cacophony of noises that usher in the climax, and the lack of that made it less powerful. Overall though, this (along with Up, incidentally) is easily one of my favorite plays, and certainly the best that I’ve read in recent months.

*Find Up, and read it right now. I won’t even be offended if you click away from this review to do so. It’s an amazing, gorgeous play. If you love theatre, you owe it to yourself to read this play.

—Dan

"People don’t want to see a character, they want to see you. Which I think gives you an advantage,..."

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:05:46 -0800

“People don’t want to see a character, they want to see you. Which I think gives you an advantage, you’re good at [doing] that.”

- Audition advice from the man himself, Geoff Proehl. (via yourehilarious)

Acting is magic, too.

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:37:55 -0800

schematicspontaneity:

It’s telling a story with your interpretation of a character. Making someone believe you are not yourself, pulling them in and enthralling them with what you have to tell. It’s a very different magic than music, but it, too, is magic.

Photo

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:16:42 -0800

yourehilarious: Bill Hader on his SNL audition Auditions in a...

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:09:00 -0800

yourehilarious:

Bill Hader on his SNL audition

Auditions in a nutshell. Haha

Submit page open

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:49:00 -0800

I just realized that we hadn’t set up a submit page.

So I fixed that by making one.

So, share things with us!

—Dan

SCRIPT REVIEW: Three Tall Women

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:26:00 -0800

C: (To A; slowly, with great emphasis, but no anger) I…will…not…become…you. I will not. I…I deny you.

I think I’ve finally read every major Edward Albee play. And to be honest, I didn’t expect Three Tall Women to be as good as it was. And to be even more honest, it wasn’t until Act Two that I was fully engaged. This isn’t because Act One is bad by any means, but just because Act Two is purely amazing. Like with Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo and The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (I think? It’s been a while since I read that one), Albee has a pattern of making a good if slightly tepid first act, and follows it up with an amazing, gut-punching, incredibly memorable second act. This rings true with Three Tall Women. Without going into particulars, I will say that the second act was made exponentially richer and more profound because of the first act.

One of the first interesting things I noticed about the play was it’s unconventional character names. I’ll preface this by saying that I absolutely hate when characters are named “Man” or “Woman” or “Daughter” etc. Whichever playwright did that first must have thought they were edgy as shit, and they probably were at the time, but it’s now utterly trite in my opinion. Albee threw me a curveball by naming his three characters A, B, and C. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it at first, but I really did see its symbolism by the end. Perhaps my favorite thing about the character names is how underwhelming they would look on a bio. “…so-and-so received many accolades for her striking, honest portrayal of B in Three Tall Women…”

Albee is one of my favorite playwrights because of the things he writes, but I sometimes can’t stand the way he writes. Literally almost every line has a parenthetical suggestion of how it should be delivered. Performing his plays must be an endurance test, because most of the lines also contain one or two italicized words that force Albee’s emphases onto the actor, which I can imagine being a nightmare to break away from. However, from a reading-plays-for-pleasure standpoint, this is actually a good thing. Because everything is so deliberate, it’s very easy to really hear the characters the way he wants us to and not get hung up on our own interpretations of them. Without this style we’d miss such gorgeously specific stage directions as this:

B: Go away!! (Angry, humiliated, tears.)

The best and most intriguing element to this play is that A, B, and C are one person at different stages of her life. A is the ninety-one (or ninety-two) year old iteration, who has seen everything and is faced to deal with her own mortality; B is fifty-two and currently surviving things A has long since accepted; C is twenty-six, curious and resisting of her impending future. These details surface only in the second act. The first act explicates that these three are separate people, while the second act is, I believe, some sort of out-of-body experience for A, though this is never explained. In any case, it makes for great theatre. The three of them quickly take to referring to themselves as a collective, and it really is fascinating to see the ways that one person would, theoretically, discuss their own life with their past and future selves. One of the best moments was one in which they discussed “their” son, with whom they had a rocky relationship. A seemed to be over the situation for all intents and purposes, C (who wasn’t even married yet) expressed curiosity and fear, while B was very, very indignant about it, which leads to one of the most tragically passionate monologues I’ve ever read. This monologue in particular would have been fine out of context, or even perhaps if the play had begun at the second act, but it was made full and awe-inspiring because of things said in Act One. Edward Albee, you genius bastard.

Conclusion: I was going to do a section on how hard this play would be to direct, but this review is already way too long. I can squeeze it in here though: directing this play would be a challenge. While the set and lights are very simple, the acting would be difficult to refine. A breaks into at least a dozen full on sobs in the first act alone, and making these genuine would be quite a task. Act Two is basically an hour long dream sequence, which is enthralling because of its surrealism, but it’d be hard to find the line between too surreal therefore overbearing and not surreal enough therefore confusing. However, in spite of those things, this is a beautiful play made for actresses, with great monologues, humor, and amazing, sharp writing. There are many moments that will make you uncomfortable, whether because they’re racist or explicitly sexual, but that really is just par for the course in an Albee play. I personally love theatre that makes me feel uncomfortable, but I understand that isn’t for everyone. Despite that, I implore all of you to read this play; it will, at the very least, illustrate the limitlessness of storytelling.

—Dan

"This is what we do. We are not doctors. We are not firemen. Putting on plays, taking the stage is..."

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:53:51 -0800

“This is what we do. We are not doctors. We are not firemen. Putting on plays, taking the stage is our contribution to the world. This is what we do. This is what we can do. This is what we must do.”

- Director Dana Ivey in a preshow pep talk to her actors before their September 11th, 2001 performance of Major Barbara. (via bobisgoofy)

littlestagethings: based off a submission by shelbyann91

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 23:38:28 -0800

littlestagethings:

based off a submission by shelbyann91

"They put on bad shows sometimes, but they never put on a show that didn’t deliver a punch to the..."

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 23:18:42 -0800

“They put on bad shows sometimes, but they never put on a show that didn’t deliver a punch to the solar plexus, maybe not in the first act, maybe not in the second, but always at last a good hard punch was delivered, and it made a difference in the lives of the spectators that they had come to that place and seen that show.”

- “Something wild…” by Tennessee Williams (speaking about a community theatre company that he worked with in his early adulthood)

Pretty sure you've always wanted to see me naked.. Well.. I'm feeling pretty adventurous today so go to datelink4[dot]com (switch [dot] with .) then sign up and find my profile under the username 'lolsummer69'. I hid my face in the pictures. but I want you to guess who I am and then hit me up on Facebook lol. Good luck.

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:36:19 -0700

Bob and Dan’s Theatre Blog does not endorse this message.

Anyone see any good plays lately?

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 11:16:42 -0700

My one true desire in life.

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 13:18:57 -0700

thetruthwithoutthefluff:

If there were one thing that I would want to be in my entire life, it would be an actor. I have always loved performing and I would love to be able to work on the craft and improve my acting abilities because… quite frankly I suck at it.

Of course this is my dream and the idealist and me would love for it to become a reality.

Unfortunately, life does not work this way. There are millions of actors that never make a living off of acting and I doubt that I would be able to pull it off. The sensible part of my brain is telling me to get a stable job and find a happy medium somehow. But how is this possible? I’m 19. How the hell am I supposed to decide what I want to do with my life?

But it kills me inside everyday that I can’t actually stand up and try to go for it. I always tell myself that when I’m old and gray and looking back at my life, will I regret never pursuing the one dream I have always had?

Then I have the insecurity that my face isn’t good-looking enough to be an actor. I have sizeable moles all over and I’ve noticed that most actors’ faces appear to be clear of blemishes/moles. If my acting chops aren’t good enough, I can’t rely on my “pretty face” to get me by.

People tell me I could have a stable job and do a little acting on the side, but I feel like my body is getting older everyday and that I will lose my youthful, childish dreams of acting. I’m blinded by show business.

I need a life coach. *sigh*

If you want to do it, then don’t let anything stop you from doing it. Go to acting classes. Major in theatre. If you don’t get cast in things in your community, write your own theatre and make your own “community.”

This is all coming from a junior in college who started acting at 14, and only stopped sucking at it at about 19. Practice. Study film actors who don’t rely on their looks. They tend to be the most fascinating actors, because they get into the industry through the back door; i.e. with acting talent as opposed to a pretty face and an empty wallet.

Don’t get discouraged. Work with people who inspire you. Most importantly, do theatre (or film) that inspires you.

-epochdan

PLAY REVIEW: Book-It's Great Expectations

bobisgoofy — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 00:06:42 -0800

   Seattle’s Book-It Theatre is well known for adapting literary classics into fine stage productions that capture the words and spirit of the original work, blurring the lines between script and novel. Their adaptation of Great Expectations, one of the most adapted works of all time, tackles the novel’s episodic coming of age story at an incredibly brisk pace. Once the actors take their first entrances, they blow through the material at break neck speed and don’t let up until the nearly three hour production is over. Lee Osorio as Pip, the orphan whom after a strange series of events has “great expectations” suddenly thrust upon him, carries the show with his performance that shows the gradual growth of maturity from young scamp to a man that is able to appreciate his place in the world. Strong performances like Osorio and inventive staging transform a bare stage into a world of blacksmiths, convicts, and other men of varying expectations.
    The set is bare with only saran wrap draped from the rafters to the columns at the far sides of the stage to work with. Additional movable set pieces such as chairs, benches and small platforms are brought out for scenes, but nothing ever stays in place for long. The saran wrap strewn across the room works well with the lighting changes as both an additional filter and as a reflective surface. The minimalist set allows the stage to transform from Joseph Gaudry’s forge to the creepy mansion of the equally creepy Ms. Hasheem and to dozens of other locations seamlessly. The show doesn’t lose a single beat as these transitions are choreographed perfectly, flowing graciously from one place to the next with the aid of ensemble actors. Pip keeps the action moving during each transition, clarifying the location and the nature of the scene without it ever feeling too forced.
    The actors all provide fantastic performances complete with enchanting cockney accents, but it is the physicality of each actor that really shines through in making each character come alive. Pip begins the play darting around the stage with the energy of a young child, running into set pieces and other characters. By the end of the show, he takes the careful steps of a man who has realized the consequences of his actions. The fight choreography, done by University of Puget sound alum Tom Dewey adds to the performance. Pip engages in a street brawl with another child, Herbert, played by Trick Danneker, with high steps and spirited fisticuffs while another brawl between Jo the blacksmith and Orrick has the stiff harsh action of older men. The performers’ mastery over their own body allows the double casting of several of the major characters to work. Magwitch and Jaegers, both played by the lanky Michael Patten, are easily distinguishable not just through costume and voice but through Patten’s manipulation of his own considerable stature in his mannerisms and posture.
    Book-It’s Great Expectations shows that a book with dozens of different scenes and locations can be portrayed on stage fluidly and efficiently. It just takes good choreography from the ensemble cast and a strong lead that can keep up the energy needed to maintain the audience’s focus throughout the marathon show.

-bobisgoofy

"I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened..."

lemondropstastelikebetrayal — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 13:24:04 -0800

“I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.”

- Tennessee Williams (via nodoors)

THEATRE TRIVIA: Why MacBeth is a Cursed Play

bobisgoofy — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 13:18:53 -0800

This is a fun little piece of trivia. Most theatre people know that MacBeth is a cursed play and that the title should never be spoken out loud in a theater, but how many people actually know why it is considered so cursed? Read on to find out!

The short answer: It’s cursed because it contains actual curses.

Wait… what?

True story! Well, “true” at least. There is some debate as to whether or not Shakespeare wrote all or any of his plays and the witch scenes in MacBeth are often brought up in those debates, but let’s assume that Shakespeare wrote it and go from there.

The reason that witches were included in the script was likely because King James I of England, whom was not only the king when Shakespeare was working but also a supporter of the arts had a bit of a fetishism about witches. James I actually wrote on the subject of how witches were ruining England in his scholarship.

I know, right?

Including witches in his show was a must for Shakespeare because it was such a topic of interest in the time. Why he wrote on MacBeth, who is a real historical figure and not the villain he is portrayed as in the play, is a different question and I’ll keep this just to the witches. The history recorded in Holinshed’s Chronicles details the life of the historical MacBeth and his encounter with three witches. That’s right, there really was a MacBeth and he really did meet the Weird Sisters! The lines in the play that the witches say are taken directly from Holinshed and considered a direct transcription of the witches’ incantation. It’s also notable to mention that most theaters, including the theater that Shakespeare’s actors performed in, are circular, and that circles are important in spells of binding. The fact that a theater is one giant circle (half circle, typically in most modern theaters) makes it the perfect place to be reciting spells.

To read more, I suggest this page from Shakespeare online.

Oh, and if you’ve been misfortunate enough to accidentally speak the name of the Scottish Play out loud (some say it only counts in a theater, others say it counts if you’re in any rehearsal space or anywhere as long as you’re involved in a production) there is a way to break the curse. Typically, spin three times in a circle (one for each of the witches, also, notice the appearance again of the circle) and spit while cursing.

Happy spellcasting!

-bobisgoofy