Return

Today was my first day back in the office from my sabbatical. The cursor blinks. What should I say? Do I write about all that transpired since my last entry? The joy of seeing so many talented artists at Fringe (and some less talented, but doing the work nonetheless). Do I write about the challenges of traveling for two months and the attendant difficulties that continue to be a part of my life, marriage, parenting, and work? Do I write about the ambivalence of return, the people who are glad to see me, and the people who are eager to talk to me- some who want to hear about my travels and others who have been waiting for my return to have someone to talk to about what is difficult and challenging them? It's all there. But there is also joy and an eagerness to carry some of what I experienced into the work. That comes with some trepidation because I don't know how it will be received, or if it will be received. What I know is that if I stop myself before I start and fall back into the old patterns, I won't be at it long. What's become clear is that the call isn't to satisfy and stick to the status quo. That way lies the grave. No. What I do want to do is to keep adding to this blog that no one will read. To put these thoughts somewhere about what is lost and what is found and the repentance of those who would rather criticize than rejoice. To express the delta between that desire and the reality of a 14-year-old son who is a pathological liar with a good heart, deep fear, and a teenager's capacity to be annoying AF.

So today as I consider the stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin, I'm thinking about those who grumble about inclusion and the effort made to include, and the complaints about political correctness and the willingness of God to find us when we are lost in the world, but also when we are lost in our own sense of righteousness. That's enough for now.

Fringe

 The time in Edinburgh is quickly coming to a close and we'll soon be flying back to Albuquerque. While I am eager to return to our Land of Enchantment, there is no doubt that Scotland has a magic all its own. It really is the perfect setting for something like the Potterverse.

Since taking in La Clique, I have seen: 

I Am Mark - A 50 minute one-man telling of Mark's Gospel, abridged. Quite an excellent job of conveying the dynamic nature of this gospel in a dramatic way that holds the viewers attention.

Oxford Alternotives - A mixed gender a cappella group performing familiar pop hits. Not sure everyone needed a mic, but some of the lead vocals would have benefitted from more amplification against their peers. All-in-all, okay. Not great.

Don't Say Macbeth! Very funny show about the premiere of an alternative version of the Scottish play (don't say the name, it's bad luck) from the perspective of the three witches. A couple of days later, I had the good fortune of running into one of the young actresses at the bus stop. A student at the Royal Academy of Music studying musical theater. A bit of Fringe serendipity.

Baby Wants Candy Recommended by my friend Nate's wife, Ashley, this improv troupe is a Fringe staple, improvising a musical from the audience's suggestion. I took Miranda to this one with me. The night's chosen title was "A Ship Called Virginity" and it was pretty heavy on sex and genital talk. I thought it was hilarious, but I think it was a bit too much for her. I'll offer a thought on the improvisation a little further down.

Austentacious was another improv show, this time crafting one of the "lost novels" of Jane Austen from audience suggestion. I called out the suggestion that Grace and I came up with and they took it! Vice and vexation. Such fun. Only here's the thing, neither improv company rose to the level of the Improvised Shakespeare group that the Mountaineers saw in Chicago. Perhaps that is a high bar to measure against, I don't know. But with more improv on offer, I think I've had my fill.

Prometheus Bound (Io's Version) This is the one that all five of us went to see. Another story told from the perspective of a female, rather than a male point of view. The fate of the fallen titan Prometheus is secondary to that of the mortal Io who is transformed into a cow to hide from the wrath of Hera. As creative as the piece was, and despite the afternoon sleepies that caught up with me halfway through the show, I may have been the one who liked it best. Grace, Miranda and Marie Elena all observed that shouting shouldn't be confused with good acting. That goes for David Harbour's performance in Mad House as well as the lead actress of this piece. Still, I am fascinated by the way these archetypal myths continue to address the questions and struggles that humans deal with so many centuries after they were first created. 

The Royal Edinburgh Military Tatoo While not technically a Fringe offering, the Tattoo coincides with the Festival (both the original international festival and the fringe festival that has grown up alongside it). On the one hand you could say that this pageant is made for the tourism of August. But on the other hand, it IS spectacular. Our whole family thoroughly enjoyed the pipes, drums, dancing, rifle handling, all of it. There was even a number devoted to Mexico (of all countries) complete with Mariachis. The evening ended with fireworks, which felt fitting after hearing one of the characters in the Prometheus show remark how much humans really love fire (the gift for which Prometheus is punished for giving to humanity.)

Everyman The truth is that I mistakenly bought a ticket to this show thinking it was Everyone, the play I bought and read at the suggestion of a couple of playwrights when I told them about my desire to create post-modern mystery plays. This production was its own adaptation of the structure of the old medieval play and it was done to great effect. I couldn't have guessed that the players themselves were graduating high school students, they were SO GOOD. It was an excellent example of taking something quite old and finding its continued relevance today. 

She Had it Coming This was another a cappella offering, although one that offered something of a story to hang its pop music numbers on, similar to the concept of a jukebox musical like &Juliet. Six historical women caught in purgatory must make the case for why they deserve heaven rather than hell. What the story lacked in originality was more than made up for in the excellent harmonies and arrangements of the songs. This group made use of only two microphones: one for the lead vocalist and one for the beatboxer. It worked MUCH better than the Alternatones. I loved that they threw in the Schueler sisters from Hamilton. 

Avenue Q This is one of those shows that I knew of, but didn't really know what it was about. I knew it had Sesame Street-style muppets, and I knew it was considered a little bit racey thanks to HBO's Big Little Lies. But seeing it for myself, I was utterly charmed even though the venue at the top of the building was quite warm. I misunderstood the Q to mean "queer" and expected way more gay themes. Only one of the show's storylines dealt with that. The rest of it was fairly conventional story-wise, addressing the struggles of college graduates in their 20s living in New York City. Sweet, funny, and a little perverse. Right up my alley. I'll be checking out the soundtrack on Spotify.

Love Them to Death A two-woman showdown between an overly protective mother and a school special education director. The scenes between the two women were juxtaposed by soliloquies of sorts that advanced the characters and the conflict between them. The question at the heart of the story is "how sick is this woman's son, and is she making him sick?" The writing injects just enough doubt into that question to make what unfolds truly compelling. I really liked it, but also found myself invested in the struggle with a generation of parenting that is overly involved in its children's lives and health. I guess I related to the exasperation of the specialist who just wanted a child to have the opportunity to be a child without excessive concern for health and safety hanging over them at all times.

Four more shows to go. Experiencing Fringe here makes Avignon feel like a missed opportunity. Seeing that horrible Sherlock Holmes piece promoted here, though, was something of a cautionary tale that not everything on offer at a festival this large is going to be a winner. So far, I'm feeling good about what I've chosen to see.

Mad House, Skye and La Clique

Mad House

Hours before bidding London adieu, Miranda and I settled into amazing seats bought on rush for the matinee performance of this new play featuring David Harbour and Bill Pullman. Quite a powerful one-two punch. The play itself was interesting. Here's a conundrum for theatrical producers. In order to get a new play produced on the West End, such that audiences will buy tickets and make it a profitable endeavor, it helps to cast big-name film and television actors. The challenge this presents is that it can be difficult to see beyond the actor's "star" quality. Bill Pullman had it easier. He was playing a dying old man and his stocking cap hid his signature hair. The actor disappeared and the character emerged. David Harbour's task was much more difficult. I don't know that I ever stopped seeing him, or Sherriff Jim Hopper, and fully connected to the person he was playing. It didn't help that he used some of the same vocal dynamics. Then there is the play itself, which trafficks in the well-worn paths of family dysfunction. Mostly to positive effect. There were great acting moments of connection and injury that we felt by the whole theater and I liked the ending.

Afterward,we hustled to queue up to say hello to the lead actors and were informed by the security guy that they may not get to everyone in the queue. Pullman came out and it was delightful to see him up close and compliment his performance. But for the Miranda the main attraction was meeting a principal actor from her current fixation, Stranger Things. Sadly, it was not to be. An announcement was made that Harbour had left to attend another engagement. So we hurried to gather our bags and meet the rest of the family for the overnight train to Scotland.

Skye

We rocked and swayed through the night on the Caledonian sleeper and woke to the beauty of Scotland. We just barely crammed our luggage into the rental car and drove out of Inverness to Skye by way of the infamous Loch Ness. No monsters to speak of that we could see (but that doesn't mean they're not there!) The landscape just got more and more beautiful as we made our way to Skye. On the recommendation of our taxi driver in Inverness, we diverted to the 6-car ferry that carried us the short jump to the Isle. Over the next four days, we climbed to the Old Man of Storr in driving wind and some rain, fought off swarms of midge flies to see the Fairy Pools, and reveled in the magnificence of Quaraing on picture perfect day. On the fourth day, we drove two hours for the kids' surprise: a trip on the Jacobite steam train that travels over the famous viaduct from the Harry Potter films. It was everything we could have hoped for. The next morning we loaded up the rental one more time and set off for Edinburgh, Fringe, and our last week abroad.

La Clique

First night of Fringe I saw La Clique at the Hub on the Meadows. They didn't open the venue until nearly 45 minutes past the posted showtime, but I will say that it was definitely worth the wait. There were aerialist contortionists, a hoop guy, a sword swallower, a unicyclist, and more. Not only were the acrobatics and physical feat amazing to behold, but they were also done with first-rate showmanship. What a great way to kick off Fringe. Oh, and Jesus even made an appearance.

The Burnt City and The Glass Menagerie

 

The Burnt City

Four years ago in New York City, I had an open evening and wanted to see something a little less conventional than what was showing on the big Broadway marquees. An old high school friend who now lived in the city and worked around the business suggested I buy a ticket to experience Sleep No More. I say experience rather than see because Sleep No More was an immersive theatrical presentation of the Scottish play over four stories of a building in Chelsea that had been transformed into the fictitious 30's noir McKittrick Hotel. It was my first encounter with Punchdrunk, the company that created Sleep No More. I have never had a theatrical experience like it. That is until this past Wednesday night when I attended Punchdrunk's newest production in London, titled The Burnt City. This experience trades Scotland for Troy, diving into the mythology of the Peloponnesian Ward and the fall of Troy to the Greek army. 

My prior experience with Sleep No More taught me to follow particular players to new scenes and revelations. In doing so I was pulled aside into a room where I painted a flower and was given a feather plucked from the player's back to protect. Another time I was invited under a "car" whose underside revealed a labyrinth with a minotaur. It was as weird and wonderful as it sounds.

I spent 3 hours and the only thing that I saw repeated was the core scene of Agamemnon confronting Queen Hecuba and her daughters, which by my count got played out 3 different times (one of those I was in a different room watching two characters impacted by what was happening in the main space). Before leaving the theater I enjoyed a French 75 cocktail in the bar and then made my way out into the night.

As I walked toward the underground station, I searched frantically for the feather that was entrusted to me. I couldn't find it and didn't know what could have happened to it. I stopped for a pint and a small bite to eat and looked up to see actors from the company enjoying post-show camaraderie. There was the actor who had given me the feather. I told him how upset I was that I couldn't find it. "I told you to keep it safe," he said. Magically, when I got back to the room and emptied my pockets, the feather materialized to confirm all that I had encountered in The Burnt City.

The Glass Menagerie

It's nearly impossible to be conversant in 20th pop culture without knowing Marlon Brando calling out, "Stella!" from the film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. As a kid who went to plenty of speech meets in high school, I was familiar with scenes from Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Suddenly Last Summer. But while I knew of The Glass Menagerie and had even heard allusions to some of its characters, I didn't know the story. I might not have gone to see it except for the fact that my old friend turned movie star, Amy Adams, was making her West End debut in the play. Amy did a fine job creating the source of conflict in the play as the overbearing mother whose unrealistic expectations raise the stakes on something as simple as having a friend from work over for dinner, a Gentleman Caller. The real highlight of the production was the actress playing Laura, the daughter. Mention is made of the daughter's liability. Amy shared with me when we went to say "hello" afterward,  that the actress herself has cerebral palsy.  The play itself is simple, but was so well-acted that the devastation of it was profound. Seeing Amy after was so nice. She was kind and gracious and I'm glad we got to see her.

My first show with Ms. Adams. A Chorus Line at Boulder's Dinner Theater in 1994

Friday was spent at the British Museum. Museums and ADHD aren't a great combination, so we didn't plan to be there too terribly long. Even so, Yared got quite upset that I wanted to look at the Ethiopian wall (a pittance next to floors of Egyptian artifacts). The mummies are fascinating, but as Yared observed, it feels like there is something wrong about all these things that come from other countries being held at the British Museum. He has a point, and I'm glad he's thinking about things like that.

Home, Juliet, and Mockingbird

 

Home

After a few days in Dublin with Grace- where I saw Rob Bell, got a hot towel shave, and visited the Book of Kells at Trinity University- we returned to Galway, where the girls and I took in the show Home at the Galway festival. I knew next to nothing about what we were there to see beyond what I'd read when I bought the tickets. The show's creator, which I later re-read, is an illusionist. This makes sense in hindsight as the opening several minutes of the show were a series of magic illusions in which the leading actor was replaced by other actors who would create the piece. A wooden frame with semi-transparent mylar stapled to it (shades of the Black Monk- aaaaarrgh) went up and when it was moved a bed and door frame appeared on stage. The actor laid down on the bed, covered himself with the sheet, and only to have a young girl uncover herself where he had been.  Once this convention was established the main set-piece was built; a house... that would become a home. As it was put together various actors re-created the daily rhythms of a home from bedtime, to rising, showering, toileting, etc. Yes, there was full undress, in the unflinching way we undress in the privacy of our homes. This rhythm of movement built into a crescendo of life events- a dinner party, turned graduation/wedding celebration, turned into New Year's Eve with audience members (myself included) pulled onto stage and directed by the actors to continue the ongoing spectacle. I danced in the conga line, dealt cards, and did what they said. Then we witnessed a body laid out on the table like a funeral, and finally, as it wound down, watched the actors deal with moving out, or a fire, or whatever else lead to one leaving a home they have lived in. The cumulative effect of it all was moving. It did not have the same impact on my girls who have left home and have yet to truly create homes of their own. We emerged from the theater to rain and took a taxi home.

Juliet

Yared and my first night in London we took in the jukebox musical &Juliet. I entered that day's lottery for Cabaret but didn't win tickets for that. So we went to this instead. What a delight! The strength of this jukebox musical is its premise. On the opening night of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the bard's wife Anne Hathaway travels from Stratford to see it. When Will reveals the double suicide of the star-crossed lovers, his wife suggests a happier ending- one in which, instead of taking her life, Juliet gets on with her life instead. This alternate ending becomes the source of a whole new play interspersed with pop hits from the past 25 years, from Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, and more. The show was pure joy, and a day later Yared talked about it as "brilliant." I don't know that I'd go quite that far, but it was REALLY entertaining. We both left with big smiles on our faces. The young woman in the lead was an understudy and she slayed. I only wonder how much better the main actress would have been.

Mockingbird

Last night we got the chance to see Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of the Harper Lee classic To Kill a Mockingbird. I tried very hard to temper my expectations. I have loved much of what Aaron Sorkin has created and was eager to see what he would do with this, especially after listening to him and Jeff Daniels talk about it on Marc Maron's podcast. The challenge is that I have a very emotional connection to the novel. I remember reading it in high school and have seen the movie a couple of times. But when Miranda was in middle school, we read it together. I understood it from a much different place and wept at the end. No, really. I can't ever remember sobbing while reading a book, but I did reading this one. 

Some of the actors managed their Alabama accents better than others, but overall it worked to fine effect. The actor playing Atticus reminded me of Jason Sudekis, in a good way. His was a much different take on the energy of the character than Gregory Peck. Some portrayals are hard to get away from. That said, his courtroom scenes felt a little overplayed, but that may have been the Peck effect. He was clearly directed, or allowed to play it that large, so who can say.

What I knew from the Sorkin interview is that he shifted the focus of the story away from Scout's arc to Atticus' arc, how he was changed by the case of Tom Robinson and the attending fallout. It becomes a story less about how a child comes to see her father in a particular way, and more about how a man comes to see his neighbors in a different way and to see how treating everyone with respect can feel disrespectful to those who are harmed and threatened by those who are afforded respect. The subplot moment with Dill and Atticus was poignant, and overall I'm glad to have seen it, even if it's always hard to experience familiar stories with fresh eyes.

True West

 

Of all of Sam Shepherd's plays, True West may be his best-known work. A case could be made for Fool For Love or Buried Child, but part of the lore around True West comes from the Steppenwolf production 37 years ago with John Malkovitch and Laurie Metcalf directed by Gary Sinise. The original staging in New York hadn't been particularly well-received, but the Steppenwolf production gave both the theater company and the play considerable attention. The staging that Y and I saw in Galway was also a Steppenwolf production, this time with two black actors in the lead roles of Austin and his brother Lee. While originally written and produced with white actors, the use of black actors gives some aspects of the play new power. Early on there is talk of Lee breaking into homes and stealing. A comment is made about him prowling a neighborhood like their mothers'. Given the stereotypes and stories of black men seen as suspicious, these lines take on additional weight. There is also something added to the dynamic of Lee hustling the producer Saul on the golf course and the assumptions about who can and can't play golf. 

The most gratifying part of our experience was sharing it with Y. He's been to a couple of plays with me now. He really like this one, even if he didn't quite understand the ending. To be fair, I'm not sure I quite understand it. 

Then yesterday I came to Dublin with Grace and got the chance to see Rob Bell. The theater didn't have A/C and it was one of the hottest days on record, still, it was interesting to see Rob in person. There was far less production value to this talk than Introduction to Joy, but I always appreciate hearing him think and apply what it means to say that Everything is Spiritual. Everything- thoughts, feelings, cells, even stars, and planets rise and then fade away. To step back and observe this without letting it control us is to embrace the spiritual truth of an eternal kind of seeking in the I-ness, now-ness, and here-ness of our lived experience.

I wonder how Lee and Austin's story might have looked different if they'd been able to step back from what both of them seem to want.

The Black Monk, Road to Burnout, Sherlock Holmes and The Grapes of Wrath

 

Staged in the courtyard of Avignon's Papal Palace with a curtain time of 10 PM to account for the light, The Black Monk was a spectacle of multimedia, creative set design, and imaginative interpretation. None of which could save it from Checkov's source material about a young man's madness, its cure, and the question of what inspires artistic genius. The artistic mind and temperament frequently flirt with or draw from what used to be called madness. Nowadays we call it mental illness, and as such, it takes a far less romantic and far more clinical approach to this particular human condition. I've seen any number of creative works of art that have madness as their subject matter, from Marat/Sade to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Clearly, there is an audience fascinated with the descent from what we might call a "right mind" to one that is manic and/or delusional. Church work, particularly urban ministry, often puts me close to people struggling with mental illness, some of which are treated by a self-medicating form of addiction.  The story depicted takes us from an ordinary visit to the country to the destruction of a family and the loss of a garden (is this a call-back to Genesis?) that is filled with the destructive pain caused by mental illness. To go through it four times in four variations over 2 hours and 40 minutes and well past midnight wasn't anything I'd like to experience again. But I could appreciate the vision behind the staging and the skill of the performers, even if the result wasn't very enjoyable.

The next day we went in a totally different direction. The girls and I went to see a one-man show in a small black box theater. We chose it because it was advertised as being in English. The two big shows had been sub-titled in English, but that is very much the exception. Our performer, Greg, seemed like a decent guy making pretty cliched observations about office work. I give him an A for the effort of doing his show in English. I wonder if it plays better in French. I think he is Belgian. In terms of production value this 'Off' offering was a long way from Iphigenia and Black Monk. Two days later I took in a Sherlock Holmes piece staged by actual British actors speaking English. God help anyone who hoped to read the French subtitles which were badly and blurrily projected on the wall. The actors were okay, although the Holmes tended to chew the scenery. The actual story was pretty boilerplate and more than a little hokey. Beyond the performance itself, the audience arrived for a 4 PM show on a hot afternoon in southern France. The body odor from a couple of my fellow patrons was powerful. ICK!

Finally, I was intrigued to see an adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath on offer. I knew it would be in French, and I'm not sufficiently familiar with the book to know what was being said. But the piece itself was impressive. Led by a gifted actor who effectively told the whole story using shifting physicality to convey the different characters. Also on stage were three musicians who would occasionally offer a song in the Americana style of the material to great effect. The songs were all in English and they made it an enjoyable experience, even if I wish there had been subtitles to allow me to enjoy the production more. The piece itself is something I would eagerly see in translation if it could be done with someone as talented as the man I saw perform it in French. The space itself looked like some kind of old church. So much more interesting than the black boxes of the other 'Off" festival offerings I saw. However, it did put me off taking in anything else performed solely in French. Just frustrating not to understand. Something to think about.