Thursday, May 31, 2012
The Reading
May 30, 2012
Leftover image of New York. Beside me at Newsies was a beautiful woman and her two beautiful daughters. She was thin and a little leathery, from tanning, I guess, but stunningly put together and the kind of old woman who broadcasts the message, “I have lost my beauty but I have retained my power.” Her daughters were very thin too, and had flowing blond hair and exquisite summer dresses. None of them laughed or smiled or changed their expressions throughout the show. I kept looking over where they were watching with expressions of distant sadness on their faces. I had found the women in the fashion magazines, or Gossip Girl, who are all thinness and coolness and beauty, and cannot even crack a smile for fear of courting a line. Either that or they just had a terrific fight and had not made up. Only mom managed a brief smile as she crawled over me to her seat.
Yesterday was the all-day rehearsal and then the reading of The Loves of Mr. Lincoln. The theater was air-conditioned and New York was a blaze of summer heat, so there was something to be grateful for right off. The actors were excellent, several of them even, if you know about these matters, famous. I was utterly pleased with what they did. There are points at which I would have done things differently, but whether that would have been better or not someone in the audience would have to say. Sidney and the cast worked very hard, and it is difficult for a playwright not to feel a sort of unpayable gratitude for such earnest effort. My humiliation was the host of typos the cast had to pencil out as they went.
The simple thing to say is that the play is good. I kept waiting for a wince point or a big question mark to stand over my head, but those moments never came. The audience was rapt, enthusiastic, congratulatory, and the words from the producers indicated that it was everything they had hoped, and it was time for the next phase, which they refused to specify, but which I resolved to accept without specification. “This has legs,” Bruce said, though he had also quipped, “Tell everybody to talk fast so we can bring this in in under four hours.” The producers were smiling. The director was dancing around like a big white bear. I stood there and tried to figure everything out. I strained my ears for bits of conversation. I’m getting used to the idea that the playwright is NEVER the most important person in the lobby after a performance. The beautiful actors come first. The men with the money come second. About half the people didn’t know who I was, as intros were neglected at the outset, which suited me fine until I knew it would be a success.
The phenomenon that I have learned to recognize as success is when the piece no longer seems mine. Had I entered the theater without knowing what was playing, I would have sat, watched, thinking, “Hey, this is good. But didn’t I have a play about Lincoln once? Whatever became of that?” It is better than I thought I knew how to write. In most places such things cannot be said. I’ll try to remember to say, “Oh, it went fine. We’re waiting for the next step.” The other phenomenon I have learned to equate with actual achievement is walking up 8th Avenue not exultant, not triumphant, but calm, cool, each footfall saying on the pavement, “It’s all right now.” So it was Tuesday night. So is it now.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
New York 4
May 29, 2012
Met TB at Union Square. We had lunch, chatted about the philosophies, intricacies, eccentricities of the three theater companies he apprentices for. I think there must be a company championing every conceivable vision, rational, wilful, inspired, deadly, idiotic, misbegotten, glorious, humane, misanthropic. . . everything, and a little garage somewhere for them to perform in, and this is well. Some concepts are clearly so astray that you assume they’ll produce crap theater, but this is not necessarily the case. Some concepts are so shapely and beautiful that nothing gets produced at all. Makes me wonder what my concept is. I’ve always shied from “concept,” thinking of it as a box or a hobby horse, or in some cases an excuse, but I must have one, anyway, driving me from within, one more intelligible to someone outside. Sidney could probably tell me what my concept it. I won’t ask.
Saw Newsies, waiting in a line that went around three legs of a block. It is Disney’s version of Les Mis, with everything that the name “Disney” implies. Every gesture, every second was Disneyfied, so as to please most and please most broadly and to please, mostly, thirteen year old girls, and to please without challenging or causing thought. It was Velveeta: you know what they were getting at, but it was pure Product, processed out of every semblance of drama or uncertainty, resembling the real thing it imitates only vaguely. The boys could dance, though. An honest dance review or a vaudeville with that same talent would have been sensational. All the fault lay in the concept, none in the performers.
Watched fire trucks– seven of them, at the next corner west of 46th–blaze away in the street, and the long ladder hoisting firemen onto a roof. I think there was really no fire.
Monday, May 28, 2012
New York 3
May 28, 2012
Memorial Day.
Porgy and Bess on Saturday night was sensational. I’d not seen it before, and have no comparisons to make, but to me it was flawless. People say it is the great American musical, or the great American opera, and whatever skepticism I might have had is vanished. It is. Not only that, it renders the history of musical theater after the 30's a puzzlement, for why did it do what it did, having Porgy to build upon? Carousel, fresh in my mind, looks like a camp skit by comparison. The last criticism I had read about Porgy concerned the ways in which it is offensive to black people. Maybe, but the hundred or so black people in the theater that night did not appear to be offended, but rather uplifted and beside themselves with delight, in ways I probably don’t fully understand. Audra McDonald’s performance was nuanced as a fine diamond.
Watched a mockingbird harassing a great hawk over Central Park. Walked up 5th, where they were filming Walter Mitty, to the Frick, with its modest size and immodestly outstanding collection, including the Bellini Saint Francis that dwells from visit to visit in my mind. Moving down from the Park toward Times Square is one of my favorite walks in the world. Stopped for an iced tea. The boy at the register closed the drawer before rendering my change, and, as the manager was busy, asked if I wouldn’t mind waiting until the next customer opened the drawer. That didn’t seem so bad, except that it turned out the next customer was a 15 year old girl, pretty, but the stupidest person in Manhattan.
“I want a small burger, but only the meat.”
“You want it without the bun?”
“No, you know, only the meat.”
“So, you don’t want the bun?”
She waved her hand in the air to clarify things, and said, “You know, like, only the meat.”
Somewhat after due time I chimed in, “SHE WANTS IT WITHOUT CONDIMENTS OR TOPPINGS. “
Once he knew what she wanted came the paying for it. She handed hm some bills, then poured a hill of change into her palm, moving it around, counting and recounting. I realized after seeing her put some of it aside, and then remix with a sigh of frustration a couple of times that she was not able to count out 47 cents from her treasury. When she finally handed the register boy some change, he had to hand about half of it back to her. The boy gave me my two bucks from the finally opened drawer whispering, “I sincerely apologize.”
The maids reached my room at the wrong time, so I set out for my matinee early, stopping at the Playwrights’ Pub for a drink. With a sweet Irish boy on one side and a girl from Atlanta all enthusiastic over the theater on the other, I put down maybe too much, and then, liking the sensation, stopped at another bar before I reached the theater. There I was, staggering drunk down 8th Avenue in the heat of the day, happy as a boy. My beneficence was well, for I discovered that the Barrow Group Theaters are not where the Barrow Theater was actually putting on the play– that was Barrow Street, wherever the hell that is–and I missed the show. I walked back to 47th, entered a bar, the Rum House, I’d seen in my ramblings, determined to renew my buzz. I had Eric the bartender to myself for most of the time. He told me of his life as a graffiti artist, giving me insights into the aesthetics and courtesies of that interesting group, all the while plying me with different drinks whose alcohol had been replaced by rum, to see how I liked them. I liked them fine. How I got back to my room I don’t know, but I did, and when I woke from my drunken stupor at 8:30, I went back out onto the street. I’ll need to receive my credit card bill before I’m sure exactly where I went, but I was never more than a block from the Paramount, which would make Manhattan necessarily fatal if one ever tried throughly to “do” the town.
It’s Fleet Week, so the streets are thronged with sailors and Marines, which is, of course, charming. The first bar I visited hosted a throng of Marines. One pair was clearly interested in one another, but the rest left each with two girls following behind, and I thought that was well indeed. The bars seemed generally to be manned by burly Brooklyn boys, which is an excellent idea. Chatted with a sailor who plays trombone in the Navy band, who informed me that sailors from ships have to spend their own money (having the ship for room and board) but he had no ship, and was given $70 a day for food. We agreed that the taxpayers money often went for worse things. It was like watching a different version of On the Town on each corner. Returned to the Rum House, where Danny was even friendlier than Eric. I was pretty plastered by then, so the fine edge of his conversation may be lost to me. I do remember him explicating the scenes from Shel Silverstein poems he had tattooed in his arm. Met Rana, an Egyptian girl who grew up in Oklahoma City. She was seriously informative about matters in Egypt. Met a family from Melbourne, Australia, who wrote down the time and place of my play, saying they would come see it. I was gladdened to see father and mother slamming down drinks with son and daughter, something that never happened in my own experience. Danny and Mikey behind the bar entertained us all, and I think I did a little entertaining of my own. Danny gave me a beer, saying it would bring me down from my rum high. If he meant it would prevent a hangover, it seems to have done the job, unless I am right now still a little drunk. I think I probably am. Left the bar and stood on Times Square watching the show until 1:30 or so. The taste in my mouth this morning suggests I had a shish kebab, but I certainly don’t remember ordering it, or eating it. Strewn across the floor are several bits of paper with names and phone numbers on them–one I recognize, Danny’s recommendation to a bar on West Broadway– and a name tag bar with the name Calvin on it. I have tried manfully to recall Calvin. I hope a good time was had by all.
By my accounting, I was drunk 3 different times Sunday. I think I will go slow today.
Memorial Day.
Porgy and Bess on Saturday night was sensational. I’d not seen it before, and have no comparisons to make, but to me it was flawless. People say it is the great American musical, or the great American opera, and whatever skepticism I might have had is vanished. It is. Not only that, it renders the history of musical theater after the 30's a puzzlement, for why did it do what it did, having Porgy to build upon? Carousel, fresh in my mind, looks like a camp skit by comparison. The last criticism I had read about Porgy concerned the ways in which it is offensive to black people. Maybe, but the hundred or so black people in the theater that night did not appear to be offended, but rather uplifted and beside themselves with delight, in ways I probably don’t fully understand. Audra McDonald’s performance was nuanced as a fine diamond.
Watched a mockingbird harassing a great hawk over Central Park. Walked up 5th, where they were filming Walter Mitty, to the Frick, with its modest size and immodestly outstanding collection, including the Bellini Saint Francis that dwells from visit to visit in my mind. Moving down from the Park toward Times Square is one of my favorite walks in the world. Stopped for an iced tea. The boy at the register closed the drawer before rendering my change, and, as the manager was busy, asked if I wouldn’t mind waiting until the next customer opened the drawer. That didn’t seem so bad, except that it turned out the next customer was a 15 year old girl, pretty, but the stupidest person in Manhattan.
“I want a small burger, but only the meat.”
“You want it without the bun?”
“No, you know, only the meat.”
“So, you don’t want the bun?”
She waved her hand in the air to clarify things, and said, “You know, like, only the meat.”
Somewhat after due time I chimed in, “SHE WANTS IT WITHOUT CONDIMENTS OR TOPPINGS. “
Once he knew what she wanted came the paying for it. She handed hm some bills, then poured a hill of change into her palm, moving it around, counting and recounting. I realized after seeing her put some of it aside, and then remix with a sigh of frustration a couple of times that she was not able to count out 47 cents from her treasury. When she finally handed the register boy some change, he had to hand about half of it back to her. The boy gave me my two bucks from the finally opened drawer whispering, “I sincerely apologize.”
The maids reached my room at the wrong time, so I set out for my matinee early, stopping at the Playwrights’ Pub for a drink. With a sweet Irish boy on one side and a girl from Atlanta all enthusiastic over the theater on the other, I put down maybe too much, and then, liking the sensation, stopped at another bar before I reached the theater. There I was, staggering drunk down 8th Avenue in the heat of the day, happy as a boy. My beneficence was well, for I discovered that the Barrow Group Theaters are not where the Barrow Theater was actually putting on the play– that was Barrow Street, wherever the hell that is–and I missed the show. I walked back to 47th, entered a bar, the Rum House, I’d seen in my ramblings, determined to renew my buzz. I had Eric the bartender to myself for most of the time. He told me of his life as a graffiti artist, giving me insights into the aesthetics and courtesies of that interesting group, all the while plying me with different drinks whose alcohol had been replaced by rum, to see how I liked them. I liked them fine. How I got back to my room I don’t know, but I did, and when I woke from my drunken stupor at 8:30, I went back out onto the street. I’ll need to receive my credit card bill before I’m sure exactly where I went, but I was never more than a block from the Paramount, which would make Manhattan necessarily fatal if one ever tried throughly to “do” the town.
It’s Fleet Week, so the streets are thronged with sailors and Marines, which is, of course, charming. The first bar I visited hosted a throng of Marines. One pair was clearly interested in one another, but the rest left each with two girls following behind, and I thought that was well indeed. The bars seemed generally to be manned by burly Brooklyn boys, which is an excellent idea. Chatted with a sailor who plays trombone in the Navy band, who informed me that sailors from ships have to spend their own money (having the ship for room and board) but he had no ship, and was given $70 a day for food. We agreed that the taxpayers money often went for worse things. It was like watching a different version of On the Town on each corner. Returned to the Rum House, where Danny was even friendlier than Eric. I was pretty plastered by then, so the fine edge of his conversation may be lost to me. I do remember him explicating the scenes from Shel Silverstein poems he had tattooed in his arm. Met Rana, an Egyptian girl who grew up in Oklahoma City. She was seriously informative about matters in Egypt. Met a family from Melbourne, Australia, who wrote down the time and place of my play, saying they would come see it. I was gladdened to see father and mother slamming down drinks with son and daughter, something that never happened in my own experience. Danny and Mikey behind the bar entertained us all, and I think I did a little entertaining of my own. Danny gave me a beer, saying it would bring me down from my rum high. If he meant it would prevent a hangover, it seems to have done the job, unless I am right now still a little drunk. I think I probably am. Left the bar and stood on Times Square watching the show until 1:30 or so. The taste in my mouth this morning suggests I had a shish kebab, but I certainly don’t remember ordering it, or eating it. Strewn across the floor are several bits of paper with names and phone numbers on them–one I recognize, Danny’s recommendation to a bar on West Broadway– and a name tag bar with the name Calvin on it. I have tried manfully to recall Calvin. I hope a good time was had by all.
By my accounting, I was drunk 3 different times Sunday. I think I will go slow today.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
New York 2
May 26, 2012
Much wandering, much walking, so there’s a considerable blister on my left foot. Worth it. Lincoln Center, where there was nothing for me to see. Columbus Circle, where there was plenty to see, and for free. The sun was radiant; the shade from Central Park like a painting, the breezes cool. Sat at my favorite table at the usual outdoor café and watched the people and the weaver finches and the joggers and the white clouds scudding across the blue. Arrived at the Museum of Modern Art, to renew old art acquaintance and eat an arugula salad that brought tears to the eyes.
Meeting this afternoon with Sidney about the play, and about the reading. We sucked down iced coffee and talked more about the theater than I have. . . well, maybe since our last conversation. The truth is, the life I live allows me practically no occasion to discuss the things which are closest to my heart. With whom do I discuss theater, or art, or writing, without the constant and almost immediate fear of overstaying my welcome? So Sidney’s flood of theater conversation swept me out to sea, a maybe too-rich banquet after a long fast. I wonder if I situated myself like this deliberately, so as not to dissipate my craft in too much chit-chat? It worked. It backfired. It went altogether too far. I am no longer able to talk about what I can do as well as anybody on earth. S has a theory of creative process that is quite useful. He says that some people are promoters, who love an idea and go with it hard, and then maybe get worn out before the finish line. There are the analyzers, who proceed by finding the least thing that can go wrong and then obsessing about that. They move forward by assuring themselves they have foreseen and foresolved every problem. Sidney confesses to be one of those, which explains our interchanges, during which he, sometimes, imagines problems where none yet exists. He didn’t get to the other classifications, but I must be in one of them, because I’m neither a promoter or an analyzer. I assume everything in a good idea is good and bulldoze forward until there’s an actual, or practical, problem, fixing those as they arise, not regarding those which do not arise, until they do.
I was epically wrong about the attitude of my producers toward my work. According to S, they have been promoting and working on our projects–including Edward-- the whole time. I didn’t know because they didn’t communicate, but S figures it was my business to ask as well as theirs to tell, and he is right. He laughed when I mentioned the two year option they had on Lincoln. “Two years is NOTHING. It takes five years and more to make anything happen around here.” There’s a year or so of unnecessary despair accounted for.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
New York 1
May 25, 2012
Nineteenth floor of the Paramount Hotel, looking out over rooftops, against the sides of soaring giants, and out onto a space of 8th Avenue. I am glad to have a view of whatever kind. The windows open to the roar from the street, which I find comforting rather than otherwise. Helped a young German couple make their way from Newark. They stopped me and said, "We want to go to the Island of Manhattan." Sweet. Turns out they didn’t want that at all, but rather to get to their hotel in Long Island City, which Google had suggested to them was the same place as Manhattan. Few mishaps arriving. We were warned of a delay which turned out to be five or ten minutes.
Midnight. Went to the Irish Rep on 22nd to see an excellent reading of Shaw’s Man and Superman. On the advice of the ticket lady I had drinks on the sidewalk in front of Baresco’s around the corner on 7th Avenue. Sat drinking prosecco in the clear evening light while tout le monde passed by. I knew two of the actors in the play, which was nice, but also a little creepy. The production was impeccable; the play, however, lingers in disturbing ways. I wanted to say simply that Shaw is altogether too clever, but that scarcely covers the issue. There is not a moment in which the playwright is not showing off. Not one character is actually a character, but all aspects of a single, many-faceted, yet still oddly dogmatic, personality. Shaw is pleased with his ability to argue both sides of a question, and-- like Socrates-- thinks it a triumph to bring a discourse to an unresolvable dead end, which proves his wit but does nothing to further the cause of understanding. The play’s argument is precious when it is not specious, and slips so successfully from every firm place that there is no way to take it to task, no way to correct it, and the attempt to do so makes one seem a fuddy-duddly not fully in on the fun. Shaw’s fountainhead is Wilde. He has less soul than Wilde, and his cleverness illuminates primarily itself. George Bernard Shaw is the smartest person who ever lived who had really no idea of how the world works.
Come-on from the whores on 7th Avenue as I strode home. The Paul Simon tune was in my head.
Noise on the street. I was not ready to come home, slamming down vodka tonics to resign myself to bed.
Friday, May 25, 2012
May 24, 2012
Weather-wise, a perfect day. Ended with a drive to Reynolds High to see Carousel, the commencement of a feast of theater that continues tomorrow in New York. The female leads were outstanding. The people I will see again and may have to talk with about the show were outstanding, so there’s safety. I enjoyed the production thoroughly, but also noticed that the piece itself is of its time, and in it the classic machinery of the American Musical clanks on transparently. Pretty tunes. Girls at that age are always more convincing as adults than boys. At leaving, a thin red crescent of moon hung in the west.
Most dilemmas in a musical can be solved by taking the silly boy or the silly girl aside, tossing cold water in their face and screaming “wake up!” But then, where would be the show?
Thursday, May 24, 2012
May 23, 2012
Kreuzer Sonata on the radio. Karen and I looked at two houses, one of which has a frog pond, with tadpoles being guarded by mama frog. That’s the story I tell, anyway. Conversation gets an outstanding review from the Durango Herald. Sidney announces the full cast for Lincoln. It will be a night of Googling. My Josh Speed, James Lloyd Reynolds, and my Lincoln, Robert Cucciolli, seem to be renowned.
Jolene found a roll of exposed film in the piano. I developed it, and it’s 10 or 12 years old, photos of the lawn when I had just begun my garden, photos of Urthona’s big show at the Candle Station, which rocked a little corner of the world.
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