Omaha 5

May 26, 2015

I rise later each morning, my housemates still later after me. Slow everything down to fit the time. Because of my foot, I’m even denied the ancient solace of long walking and exploring. I wait for evening so I can watch the nighthawks high up. I wondered for a moment at dinner if I might even be a little homesick. Speaking of dinner, the design people gathered around me at it and shared their design ideas for Washington Place. Their ideas were bold and wonderful. Part of the boldness and wonder comes, as they themselves said, from actually being listened to, from being included in the compass of artists rather than bidden in later as technicians. The play workshops are beginning to blend together. I saw three yesterday. The first I went to because it was sci-fi, and how often do you see that? My hopes were high, but, oddly for a play set during an alien invasion, nothing happened. It was one of those female wet dreams where a host of men stand around trying to please and properly honor an outstanding woman, who insists on her own will because it is her own will, and is somehow still to be considered noble even though her selfishness annihilates a race. Talked to the playwright afterwards and she is sweet and smart. The second was the best I’ve seen yet, about a family whose son was a heinous criminal– a boy rapist-- who commits suicide. How to mourn someone you loved who turns out to be a monster? Compelling. Wept at the end. The third was the second of a kind I assume–because both were by women– to be an aspect of feminist theater at the moment: a cast not only eliminating men but, in one case, eliminating mention of them, a form like a game show or a TV variety show where a number of images can be presented in quick succession, wittily written and very funny from moment to moment, but coming to nothing. I suppose the “coming to nothing” part is quite intentional, and meant to underline the patriarchal taint of plot and meaning. It COULDN’T have been just a fault. The “special instructions” posted by the playwright made clear that she meant only to be praised. I couldn’t submit my comment sheet, partially because it was so scornful, partially because I wondered if, perhaps, I simply didn’t know how to watch the material properly. In the evening there was a “play slam” of short pieces in the Mule Barn, which were wonderful so long as I could endure to stand upon my throbbing foot and watch them. Philoctetes. Slammed down enough Bailey’s to go to sleep.