December 2nd, 2008
The first thing you have to understand about having a conversation over Instant Messenger is that it isn’t anything like having a conversation over email and nothing at all like a conversation face-to-face. The most important differences is that, when you’re IMing, you usually end up having two conversations at once. At least. See, you’re typing back and forth, and usually someone types faster than the other person. Or, one person is doing more than one thing at once. So while person A is waiting for person B to answer his or her question, he starts commenting or asking about something else.It makes for some weird dialogue. But it’s fun. And it’s the sort of thing you can do at your own pace. Theatre Exile’s new play, “dark play,” is all about IMing. It’s about the dark games a person can play when they pretend to be someone that they aren’t on-line. It’s easy to be someone you aren’t. You can just create a screen name and find someone else’s photos and play-act. Fine. But much of the dialogue in “dark play” is supposed to be Internet Chatting. Only it’s nothing like Internet Chatting. It’s like real conversation. One person says something. The other person replies. The first person responds to that. It’s not how chatting works. I’m not saying this to be pedantic. It’s just that if you’re going to attempt to represent Internet life in other media, it needs to be faithful to to what online life is like, or it’s pointless. I recently wrote a short story about a lonely superhero who keeps his social life on-line to preserve his anonymity. It’s really, really hard to write an Internet chat, but the playwright of “dark play” didn’t even make an honest attempt. There’s really no discernible difference between the actors’ dialogue in the play and normal dialogue, other than the fact that they aren’t looking at each other. I don’t think there’s a single misunderstanding in any of dark play’s dialogue, and I challenge anyone to get through an online conversation of any length without completely missing someone’s point somewhere along the line. It just doesn’t happen. It’s all too quick and curt. Without expression to aid in comprehension, meaning gets all fouled up. Worst, the playwright stretches credibility when a police officer appears online. The premise of the play is that the protagonist has found a person who will believe anything, but would anyone believe that a cop would conduct an interrogation over IM. Really? dark play does a great job of exploring the Interwebs’ dark side, the power it gives to the lonely and consciousless but it loses crebility in its lack of authenticity. It exposes what one could potentially do with anonymity on-line, but it doesn’t show you anything about what doing those things would actually be like. And, in that, it isn’t illuminating at all. It’s just speculation.
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November 22nd, 2008
I have a new concept I’m thinking about. This image might be critical. Who do you see? (it will probably be impossible if you aren’t from Philadelphia, btw).
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November 11th, 2008
Go check out The War Party at Interact. There. I haven’t posted in a while. That should do it, right? Okay, cool. Have a nice one. J/K. I should say that I’m pre-disposed to like The War Party. It has archetypes I like. The Wizened Fighter at a turning point and The Striving Youngster. Doesn’t hurt that the former is a crazy arch conservative, too. And a woman.OK, let’s be real: I could care less that either of them are women. It’s the drama of a political defeat that I got into. And get into it I did. I got downright moved at times. Moved, I say. Moved! In a reticent heart like mine, yet it happened. I promise, it happened. So, here’s what you watch The War Party to figure out: what does the Old Fighter want to do with herself and (to borrow another’s words), who this what is (meaning the Striving Youngster). It’s worth your time and a few bits of your money. So go see it before it closes. You only have till November 23rd.
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October 4th, 2008
My friend Muriel Green just started a new website. She’s starting the whole blogging thing over, with it, and said it might be fun if I kicked off some ideas for her here, that she’d follow up on. Maybe you will, too? So here’s the topic: discuss an art project you started in high school and never finished.I’ll start. Mine is “The Special Lives Stories.” It was a series of 9 stories based on these ridiculous but iconic titles I came up with. I’m writing this at work, so I can’t really remember all the titles. I wrote about three of the stories.The coolest one had been about this composer who wrote this really chilling but hypnotic piano music. As he got better and better he also got crazier and eventually was able to kill people and destroy things with the chilling power of the music he played.There was also one about a young swordswoman. I remember her mentor was a magician. Very original.In another, a superhero lived inside a sentient, magical building that served him sort of like Microchip once served The Punisher. I wrote that one at a writing contest at Pittsburg State University and won either 2nd or 3rd place. Pretty cool.I had several other stories I never wrote. One was about a Queen of Cats. Others were about… hell, i don’t remember. I’ll try to look for this on my old files at home.Anyway, the point is that they were each stories about sort of unique lives that were meant to have a sort of pantheon quality to them. They were meant to represent archetypes, in a way.But I only got a few of them down and never could focus to finish the rest.What didn’t you finish back then?
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September 22nd, 2008
Yesterday afternoon, I went and saw The Hothouse, by Harold Pinter, at The Lantern Theater. If you’ve been trying to decide whether or not you might like to try some Philadelphia theater this Fall, I highly recommend this play. It’s very funny, but in a dry and witty way. In fact, my biggest laugh came at a moment that was all about the lack of a sense of humor.
This is a very smart play about the dangers of large, closed institutions, ambition, different sorts of men and the sin of pride.
I’m watching a lot of theater this Fall. I’ve bought season tickets to four theaters and I’m going to see a few other one-off shows besides. There’s a lot of defensiveness about theater anymore. Like a lot of parts of the art world, theater is thriving within its niche but also can’t quite break out of its niche. Inevitably, the discussion turns to the tension between theater, TV and movies. Theater-advocates argue that there’s nothing like a live performance.
No doubt it’s true for an actor, but I’m not sure it’s such a big difference for the audience. Not enough, anyway.
There’s no question that a really good show and a really good audience can vibe off each other in an awesome way sometimes, but those killer nights are pretty rare (seems to me). It’s not really worth factoring those nights in to argue that live theater really is superior.
So that’s why I had to ask myself why I find myself more and more invested in Live Theater all the time. What does live theater really give that movies and tv don’t? I think I figured out the answer. Well, two answers:
1) Because Live Theater costs less, it can be much more daring. It can put on plays that the public might not really like or that smaller segments of the public will like. It can play around with the form and nature of narrative in ways that big movies just generally won’t risk. In short, you just get a greater diversity of narrative when you add theater to your performance diet. I still love movies, though.
2) Regionalism. There are different shows happening in New York and Boston than Philadelphia. We have our unique Philadelphia theater experience and New York has its experience. Lots of cities don’t have any theater experience. It gives a city something that’s its own. You want to see Philadelphia theater? Then you have to come here. As more and more things get gobbled up by huge national corporations and every commercial area looks like every other commercial area, its nice to have the odd sector that you can’t really export, and its pretty tough to franchise theater.
So there you go. That’s what I have to say about it. I’ll let you know more about my theatrical experiences this year as I go through them. I have 14 plays on tap between now and May, so there will be a few.
One last thought about The Hothouse. If you’ve ever had an awful boss, especially if he was an awful, old man, you may love this show or you may find it really uncomfortable. Either way, it really hits a home-run in portraying the character of the older man who can’t admit to himself that he’s fading and takes it out on everyone under him.
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