March 30, 2015

Rain on the roof. One darkness folded into another.

Palm Sunday was taken up by the drive to Carrboro. Of course I arrived early, and had time for lunch at the Southern Rail and a short tour which, nevertheless, took in most of the sights of that compact knot of sociability. The production itself rests uneasily upon my mind, for it represented that mix of good intentions and shoddy results about which one has a hard time coming to a conclusion. I had specifically nixed the idea of re-gendering my two leads, and said I would rather cancel than do so. I was assured that everything was well in that regard. Yet when I arrived, yes, the genders had been changed. The actors were clearly–in some cases more than others–accomplished, but they kept reminding me and one another that they had not had time to rehearse. One would know that even had they not admitted it. They tripped over lines they were reading from a page. They had not looked up pronunciations or meanings of unfamiliar words. OK, time is short for everybody, but I was solicited for this event (six months ago), asked for a script and invited to see it performed, solicited to continue when I thought it best to cancel. It’s like inviting someone to dinner two 180 miles away, reminding him periodically of the importance of that dinner, and then when he arrives, serving bologna sandwiches because everything was in such turmoil. I saw no advertising, not even a poster on the door of the theater, the upshot of which was that there was ONE person in the audience not directly associated with, or related to, a person in, the production. “Oh, there are two basketball games this afternoon, and everything around here stops for basketball” was the explanation of that. I wondered what audience would be common to both. What people call “opportunities” are sometimes so meager they seem like tribulations, and yet one must smile and thank everybody for their trouble, or be gossiped about later for one’s temperament. And there was something to smile about and be thankful for. They DID put forth the effort they put forth, and the reading did accomplish the thing for which it was intended, to allow me a hearing to note what was good and what was bad. And the play is very good, and I might plunge forward there. The souls in the room whom I could count on my fingers thought so too. Had the play been bad there would be no plank to cling to in a tossing sea of disappointment.
   
Some luscious Arts Council gossip, though. We never hear the fresh gossip up here in the mountains. An account of the installation of Shelby as Poet Laureate, and the perception that his selections were chosen for him by the Arts Council to include only that work which would not offend our unspeakable governor. R said that he himself was nominated for PL, but solicited for his materials only after the deadline had passed. The current administration’s mendacity and micro-managing asininity extends even to things one would have thought below the normal political radar. R pictures Shelby as stupefied and dispirited by the degree to which that post is a cog in the machine of politics. . . and politics which are, at the moment, the most hateful in the nation.
   
Venus rode in the center of my windshield for the last leg home.