Thursday, August 11, 2005
"Cos people believe that they're gonna get away for the summer"
The game's gettin interesting!
Scores
Fletch- 12
Nat-7
Scott Mc- 3 and 1/2
Stevek- 3
Diva Master /Dustin/ Mikey/ Synge- 1
So anyhoo- this is my last weekend before my semester officially starts back, and I gotta tell ya: Gonna kinda miss having the time to spend with the boy (even though I'll still get to see him a great deal.) Joy and I have been lucky enough to work it out thus far where he is never without one of us. Ah, the joys of a flex schedule (brit pronunciation, Rick8). Life is about to shift into fifth gear real quick. Gonna have auditions for PIECE OF MY HEART in a few weeks, got an overload of classes, including one I'm teaching for the first time, and I may wind up being our area coordinator before the end of the semester,pending what my colleague does. SOOOO...lots on my plate. BUT, I kinda like it that way...makes me feel alive, and all...
For this next question, we'll leave the controversy behind and just axe you this:
What's the best/most inspiring performance you've ever seen? This can be Broadway or Little Theatre...whatever floats your barge.
Point values going up to give some of you 1 point scrubs a chance to catch up! (3 this time out...)
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31 comments:
3 points for you! Welcome to the game!!!
That's tough-
I was (I think) 8 and saw MIDSUMMER at Actor's Theatre in Louisville. My mother had played Helena in college and kept talking to me during the show and explaining the story. I was mesmerized by Puck. I wanted to be Puck. From that point on- I was constantly trying to act. I had kept thinking "I can do that" during that play and GOSH-all-Golly, look at me now!
Another would have to be my ex's Hamlet at Lexington Shakes...I truly was amazed at watching him work as an actor...quite amazing.
Not to sound cliche' but LES MIS on Broadway was really quite incredible. I was in high school and wept openly during the show because the music and emotion was so real and truthful and because, honestly, I was almost jealous of the actors. I mean, I wanted to be up there with them. Sharing in the magic they were creating.
Others would have to be individual performances....I am fascinted by watching other actors work!!!
I remeber watching Patti Heying once and thinking how effortless her comic timing was and was just spellbound.
Damn u Rick8...u got there first with the Champagne....hmmm champagne....Timxx, school has already started here Ft. Misery, FL
Can u believe it?
The Chicago based Neo-Futurist's performance called Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.
30 plays in an hour.
Really.
Exhausting and oh so exciting. And you get free pizza when they sell out.
My name was Playground Swing that night.
I sat next to a girl called Spunk Bag.
She sat next to Seal Boy.
Exactly.
Sounds like you LOVE Florida.
FL is not my cup of tea.
We have all made a complaint or 2 about Lex and KY
but nothing really compares to Mr. and Mrs. Grumpy Whitehair and the ALMOST cultural wasteland that is Ft. Myers. Unfortunately. However, I can drive to get some fun....but that costs money. I am poor.
For me, there have been a few that stick out:
- Peter O'Toole on Broadway (Helen Hayes Theatre maybe? It was a while back) in a revival of PYGMALION (w. a young Amanda Plummer as Eliza)in 87, maybe?. Those who know me well might think this a rather "old school" pick, but MY GOD the man was fabulous, and every inch the 'star"...I'll never forget his first entrance. He stood in the shadows for a few moments, back turned, trying desperately to be non-chalant, then on his first line he turned, arms outspread, and uttered about two syllables before the audience erupted into a spontanious standing O... BRILLIANT performance, and not every day you get to see someone of his caliber, even in NYC.
- Darren Van Michael as Dodge in USM's 98 ACTF entry BURIED CHILD at Mississippi State. The entire production was spot on, top to bottom- I saw it about ten years earlier in NYC and this production FAR surpassed it! I had always known Darren to be a fine actor, but this performance was electrifying...played the age beautifully, and the "consumptive fits" were so real they made me cringe! I was proud to be a USM alum that day!
- The entrie cast of David Edgar's PENTACOST at Burning Coal Theatre in Raleigh, directed by none other than my big bro. Especially Randolph Curtis Rand, but the whole cast came together and worked off each other in a way that was awe-inspiring. If you don't know that show, it's long, complex as hell, and has about 1/2 a dozen different languages, many spoken at the SAME TIME! I, and the audience (on that day, primarily high school kids from a Theatre camp at Duke U) were absolutely riveted the whole way!
I think it's in bad form to mention something I directed, but I will simply say the cast of SIDEMAN kicked ass and inspired me each and every night, and that Chris Rose is a damned stud!
...and OH - Jason Mills brilliant turn as the Detective in WHO SNUFFED THE SNOOTY SNORER- (the only murder mystery where the one "whodunnit" is a case of sleep apneia!!!Makes JEFF CANNON look like Ibsen...)
Best/inspiring performances? There have been soooo many.
Individual performances:
Michael Gambon has got me twice. First time in the original production of SKYLIGHT. The other time was in a play called CRESSIDA, where he plays an aging actor in Elizabethan times training "boy" actors. One moment in the show had a young boy trainee doing a speech...very badly...with all the expected accompanying, Delsartian gestures (though they wouldn've have been called Delsartian at the time). Then Gambon does the same speech with the same gestures and it is... magic! Effortless and free and rich. It was a great performance, a great acting lesson, and a great history lesson all in one...in the last, showing that at some time all those mummified rituals had a meaning and a purpose, but we have long forgotten them, perverted them, or misused them. For me, a stunning moment on stage.
In a terrific production of JUNO & THE PAYCOCK that I saw at the Donmar Warehouse, the actress playing Mrs. Tancred...Helen Ryan was her name...had to come on grieving for her son slain by the Black and Tans and basically launch into this heart-rending speech with little or no build. Rended my heart.
Christopher Plummer in and as BARRYMORE. I'm a Barrymore aficianado and I bought it all the way...unlike another performer who essayed a similar portrayal which I'll bring up when you get to worst performances ever.
Judy Dench in AMY'S VIEW. Loved the play; loved her.
My friend Larry Drake in GREATER TUNA, down at the Old Globe in San Diego. His women portrayals especially were gob-smacking.
Hume Cronyn in HADRIAN VII...at one point he throws an apoplectic fit, where you thought he was actually going to die right onstage.
Howard Hesseman gave one of the bravest and most dangerous performances as DeSade in QUILLS where he has to be naked through maybe more than half the play with it all hanging out there. And given the varying temperatures in the theatre and backstage, sometimes it was hanging lower than other times. But it was not a pretty body in any event. I met him at some screening later and got to tell him how much admired his performance.
Seeing Daniel Day Lewis before he was anybody in ANOTHER COUNTRY in London in 1982. Memorable play; memorable performance.
Frank Langella in THE FATHER. I love this play. Langella, an actor I like, was splendid in it.
Ian McKellen in AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE at the Ahmanson in LA. Compelling.
Jeremy Brett as DRACULA. Very romantic and dangerous. When I did CRUCIFER OF BLOOD with him years later, he played Dr. Watson to Heston's Holmes and Jeremy was just as brilliant a Watson as he was a Holmes in the Granada series years later. He told me, "In England I play all this weight of the Empire roles. It's so nice to come over here and play Winnie-the-Pooh, which is exactly how I'm playing Watson!"
Edward Fox playing Harold McMillan in a strange little play called A LETTER OF RESIGNATION. A wonderful, sad, touching performance.
Derek Jacobi as Prospero in THE TEMPEST at The Old Vic. I don't think it was the best production of the play I ever saw, but it was the best Prospero I ever saw...dark and angry and rather unforgiving despite all his speeches about forgiveness.
The late Michael Bryant, long a staple of the RNT, as Heironimo in THE SPANISH TRAGEDY. I was sitting in the front row of the Cottlesloe when he began to bite off his tongue and the blood spattered everywhere.
PERFORMANCES & PLAYS
Roger Rees and the always wonderful Felicity Kendall in the original production of THE REAL THING.
PRIVATE LIVES with Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan. A brilliant, brilliant production and incandescent performances.
SUMMERFOLK with wonderful performances by Roger Allam, Oliver Cotton, and Simon Russell Beale (maybe the best actor working in England today).
GREAT PRODUCTIONS:
National Theatre's production of ARCADIA with Roger Allam again. The production at the Taper was equally good. Both this play and THE REAL THING put the lie to the old canard that Stoppard is cold and unemotional. Both are tremedously moving plays.
Sir Peter Hall's production of Wilde's AN IDEAL HUSBAND in my favourite West End Theatre...The Haymarket... where the play originally opened. A play that is not only hysterically funny, but also extremely touching and deep. I was in tears at one point, utterly moved by it. It also had the added bonus of Martin Shaw...who had been Henry Baskerville in my Hound of...playing Lord Goring as Oscar Wilde.
NOISES OFF...the original production. I was pretty much on the floor, weeping with laughter.
HIAWATHA...this was a Christmas kid show done at the National Theatre of the poem and it was one of the most mesmerizing productions I ever saw. Music and magic and acrobatic and wild theatricality.
WIND IN THE WILLOWS...another holiday season show at the National which was just exquisite!
1776...Touring show in Cincy, but it was moving and wonderful.
MUTABILITIE...a strange, odd play by Frank McGuinness...often obtuse and at times even impenetrable...Shakespeare and actors lost in Ireland; Spenser trying to finish the Faery Queen, ancient Irish folk heroes and gods...But utterly fascinating from beginning to end.
The Sir Peter Hall Comapny production of WASTE, a 1926 Harley Granville Barker play that you'd think just wouldn't go over in this day and age and yet it was one of the most impeccable, compelling productions I have ever seen.
A revival...still running, I think...of R.C. Sheriff's JOURNEY'S END. Another old chestnut you wouldn't think at first glance would work...but does, in spades!
Tim, Peter O' Toole is a force of nature. I saw him in '82 on opening night in MAN & SUPERMAN about four rows away (and the party in front of me hadn't shown, so I had a clear view). I couldn't even tell you if it was a great performance or not, he was just such an amazing presence on stage, tall and lean and his long limbs sort of gangling everywhichway like a puppet. But I am also a huge fan of his, so I forgive him a lot. But Panache Players like him are dying off. Then what will we be left with?
My answers sound a bit childish in comaprison to some of you distinguished gentlemen....but I run around all day teaching middle schoolers theatre...I get very little in the way adult intellectual stimulation. That's why I am sucking up all your words like a sponge!
Hey Timxx...what about posing the question....(maybe u already have..I am new here)
What shows have u been involved with that something about them blew u away? (I was inspired by your SIDEMAN comment.. ;-) ) I don't know blogging etiquette...is it wrong for a respondee to offer that?
Absolutely not. I welcome ALL suggestions...we had a quuestions similiar to that (check the archives) but I think I could put a new spin on it...and I think your answers were swell!
Rick,
I probably know about as much as you know about the new Ritchie regime. Seems to me there was just another article about this in last Sunday's paper (alas, now in the trash).
I know he cut enthic-based new play development programs... Latino, Black, Asian. And apparently the Director of New Play Development no longer exists as a job there at the Centre Theatre. I don't really know much about the reasoning or motivations behind any of this.
I do know that a third theatre was recently added to the Group besides the Ahmanson and Taper which is the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. I don't know how much that extends the Group's resources.
I must confess the plays I always go to see at the Taper or Ahmanson are usually their mainstage productions (though I remember seeing an early version of Angels in America in a grueling sweatbox up on Cahuenga one long, hot summer night)...how many of those originated in the new play system in recent years, I couldn't say. If they get production in peripheral venues, they rarely seem to come to my attention or, at least, pique my interest. So I just can't assess how valuable and effective these programs were. Or how much they cost.
Naturally, the minority
playwrights are upset and their noses are out of joint. What playwrights wouldn't be? Less opportunities for them. But is it better for the theatre's health? I don't have those answers.
Is Gordon Davidson upset? Don't know. (But let's not forget Mr. Davidson also started out as a stage manager too). Ritchie has been quite open in saying that production is his priority concern. And that he would prefer to work with the smaller theatres in town (of which there are a glut)in terms of discovering new plays (which some have referred to as "outsourcing").
What does all this mean? Beats me!
But as you no doubt know from your own experience, there is always going to be the old guard who is leery of the "new kid on the block" and will have a lot of resistance to any kind of change or doing business in any way but "the usual" way. And a lot of second-guessing, hand-wringing, and naysaying ensue.
I take more of a wait and see attitude. Let the guy get his footing. Give him a chance to settle in and get things running his way. Time will tell whether he's got a grip on the situation or whether he hangs himself.
But at this point, it's just too early to tell anything one way or the other. All I can say is: Different manager, different management style.
no sweat, it's very interesting. I don't know a whole lot about LA theatre, and the Taper forum, etc...but's lets do try to stay sort of on topic...don't want to frighten the lurkers away :)
...and actually, it gave me an idea for my next topic, so alls well...
btw Charles...DR JOHNNY FEVER was in QUILLS? How cool! Though seeing him in the buff might be more than I could withstand...
btw- I forgot another performance to add to the list- saw the Stephenwolf GRAPES OF WRATH on Broadway (for one of the three weeks (or so) it ran! I got lucky on that one) and Gary Sinese was magnificent!! That whole production really blew me away- had never experienced anything so "vast" before. I remember the traps in the stage opening up and becoming campfires...the old truck motoring across the stage, and Sinese's MIGHTY Tom Joad...Loved it!
okay rick8, i really have to disagree with you about the donkey show...i've been offered free tickets 3 times since i originally saw it for free, and turned them down. it was kind of cute, but got old quickly. and you have to be pretty drunk to enjoy it at all.
i think you loved it because you got tanked.
on my list:
#1 "angels in america: millenium approaches" with the incredible stephen spinella
#2 "i am my own wife" with jefferson mays directed by moises kaufman
#3 "some people" in chicago with and by danny hoch
all were phenomenal productions with amazing acting and direction. they all made my spine tingle for a long long time.
i loved doug joiner's bacchae too...
I think it was University of Florida when they did EINSTEIN'S DREAM. "Hellz Bellz." was all I could say after that.
Also, Aquila Theatre's version of Bill Shake's COREOLANUS. Damn.
Skoehler, I saw it at ACTF in (I think) Murfreesboro, TN.
Oh yea, Tim X.'s KEELY AND DU was very good. Give me some damn points, Tim! Jeez!
1 extra point for sucking up, DM!!!!
Ab-so-frakkin-lutely!!!
1 more point fro SK
Tim X. Davis' production of "Purlie". Nice family values-kinda vibe to it. Particualrly riveting when the white guys sang. One of the most shockingly honest and moving death scenes I've ever had the privilege to breathe near.
(Heh-heh. I suck.)
timxx, can i give my whopping 1 point to skoehler for saying i was one of the better things to come out of france?
Give me a point! I'm French Lebanese! Give me another point! I'm Irish too.
And how about a point for not mentioning Miss Fanning? And that has been really hard by the way.
Wait, I didn't mean it like that! Well, maybe a little.
You've built a nation of point-whores, Tim. Just like you always wanted. What is your bidding?
Alright Timxx
I just want to be in the game.
I am a point whore....Tuttle's right.
I bow down to u, oh POINT MASTER.
What do I have to do???
Can't I get a point for just finding this blog.....no one told me about it. My shameless vanity found it and that has to count for something....
Plus, Mr. Luckey and Ms. Synge...as u all know...with my former last name I am quite French...so if one gets a point for French-i-ness...I get one,too. (can u all tell I hang out with middle schoolers...even my reasoning has gone there...)
Ahhhhhh, we have deviated from the inital subject...but, alas, found a way to prostitiute ourselves for X-points....I love it!
Hell, dude, she's only got one!
How's about this...I take away EVERYONE'S points... (mmmwahhahahahahahahahah!!!!!!)
...and keep them for MYSELF!!!!!!!!!!!
Nah...that's no fun...I'll give Laurie one cause she hates Florida, and as we all KNOW- it's the state that cost President Gore the election!!!! Point for your well placed hatred!!!!
The rest of yous are sol...but the begging IS nice:)
Heeee Heeeee!
I knew it was worth something!!!!
Not that anyone has implied otherwise...but
while I do hate FL....I love my husband :-)
I know where you live.
This message is for Tim. LG, I aint got NO CLUE where YOU live. Except in the shitty state of Florida with a husband you love.
Wow..I really need to do a new post, don't I?
Yes.
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-Johnson
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