Tell you all my secrets

I had no internet access in Scarborough, so you are getting all of these updates in one glorious lump.

 

Saturday morning I kissed

 

LonelyDumptruck goodbye and he went off to  explore the city while I went into the theatre for my own  kind of fun.

 

We started off the day with the main lecture on Simon's pet topic: unseen Ayckbourn plays.  Simon is an absolute treasure, he really made each one of us feel important and welcome, plus he has an infectious passion about the plays. 

 

The lecture focused on 10 plays in 4 categories -
the Early plays (which included Seasons, a short script about time-travel that was probably written when he was 17, and a short skit about a Monopoly token that ends up off the board and in other games, like Cluedo and chess.  Elements of that come back in his family play The Boy Who Fell Into a Book.)

 

the  Gray plays (ones which were usually written for a specific purpose, have been performed and are , but not included in the official cannon.  The example we heard from these was Dracula, a one-act about the Count visiting a farmhouse where the daughter is a werewolf.  Simon jokes that with current media trends, this one is ripe for a revival.)

 

The Withdrawn plays (4 scripts that were produced at least once but are no longer available to perform and, no, you can't read them.) The main example of these is the original version of Jeeves.  Jeeves was a famous disaster.  To hear the tales the show ran 5 1/2 hours on opening night and the orchestra walked out after 4 1/2.) 

 

and the Lost Plays (which are not "lost".  The scripts exist and can be read in the archives, they have been produced, are acknowledged as cannon, but have not been published for various reasons.  These include Simon's least favorite play, which we swore not to reveal.  It sounded like a number of participants had seen in production there years ago and it could be a viable script if Sir Alan had time to do rewrites.  We also talked about one of his family plays which has become a lost play because he was between publishing contracts when it was written.  It brought the talk full circle because it was also about time travel and, as Simon very poignantly described it, asks us to face the questions 'if you could go back in time to prevent a tragedy, would you do it?  And then, if you had to go back again and let your loved one die all over again to prevent the apocalypse, could you do it?'  I need to get that script when it sees the light of day.

 

Simon brought in four members of Dick and Lottie, the only amature Ayckbourn troupe in the UK, to perform excerpts from each of the plays discussed.  From some of the banter, I would guess they have been coming for at least a year.  They made me want to start my own  group.  Something like the Alaskan Ayckbourn Reading  Circle.

 

They realized Friday night that they had forgotten to include a tour of the theater for us new folks, so we were given the option of cutting lunch short to go on a whirlwind tour.  All of the past participants kept telling me how ths Summer School included a tour and watching them change the set.

 

Last year the Unseen Ayckbourn participants got a real treat.  Back in 2006 someone discovered a legitimately lost Ayckbourn play up in a loft.  The weekend was scheduled to end Saturday, but at the Q& A someone asked, tongue in cheek, if they could come back the following day and give the play its world-premier reading.  Sir Alan agreed and a new tradition was born.

 

Of course, no one discovered any plays this year (though Simon says they went door to door asking to check peoples' lofts) so Simon dredged up Sir Alan's only teleplay, a short script that was produced for the BBC series Masquerade back in 1974.  It aired once and has never been seen again.  The BBC told Simon the tape had been destroyed, but after we read it we were told there was a nice surprise.  The BBC is doing a documentary on Sir Alan and they somehow dredged up the master tape so we got to see it.  It turned out Simon had me read the role Lady Ayckbourn played in the film.

 

We got a short break after that.  I met up with LonelyDumptruck.  Our room was so brutally hot that we went out for a pint before dinner.  Simon very graciously arranged for LonelyDumptruck to come to the dinner at the theater.  We started out with a shot of cold soup.  I got the blue cheese in fillo, LonelyDumptruck was supposed to get a smoked haddock cake but there was a bit of plate confusion and he ended up with the same thing.  His main course was local pork and potatoes.  I got the catch of the day which was two huge pieces of fish and vegetables.  We were both supposed to get the cheese plate, but there was more plate confusion and he ended up with the crepes.

 

After dinner was the show, Ayckbourn's 75th, Neighborhood Watch.  After the show came the chatting over wine and then the slow stroll home.  But on the way we passed a lovely little pub with a large group standing outside drinking, so we stopped off for a few.  I butted into an interesting conversation and, as we chatted more, it became obvious that they worked for the theater.  Ladies and gentleman,  I had found the techies!

 

One of them invited us along to the next spot, so we stayed up far, far too late talking and having a marvelous time.

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1. Do you feel you are a mostly positive or mostly negative person?

2. If you could listen to any song right now, which one would it be?

3. Who was the last person you kissed?


The Harriet the Spy script is quite good - some of the staging elements would be a challenge but quite fun (3 second-story locations, a classroom - you know how I love those, - and descriptions like "on the opposite side of the store are two more open windows through which various objects fly, symbols of the turmoil inside."). On the other hands, there are 4 non-speaking roles for little-littles, and we all know how much I like that.

I have a phone number and email for getting the rights to the stage version of Harriet the Spy!!

Dramatic Play Service just added a wishlist feature to their website.....

Okay, I know all the Alaskans are posting it, but it is fucking SNOWING out there. Little white puffs falling from the sky as I type! Mark just called me from work to be sure I'm seeing it.

I already read my 3 plays for the week - go me.

I still have my winnings from the Derby burning a hole in my pocket. Mark thinks it would be hysterical if I spent it all on Diet Coke.

Comedy of Errors is going very well - only one weekend left!

I need to figure out how to post pictures from Sims so I can finally make an update about my new family.


1. What would you suggest for a really fun band name?

2. What foreign country did you last visit?

3. Would you rather go somewhere tropical for a holiday or someplace with a great deal to do?

Glamorgan and Other Plays by Don Nigro


I first discovered the plays of Don Nigro when I was in high school. I fell in love with "Seascape with Sharks and Dancer" which is chockfull of great monologues I had no business even thinking of performing at that age and which I memorized anyway. In college I found "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines" which is a collection of one-woman shows that include Ophelia back from the dead to explain what happened, a girl sharing her experience doing a scene from Hamlet for an acting class and a professional actress with an odd obsession with The Scottish Play. But all this is another entry..

Glamorgan and Other Plays is Nigro in his best format - short plays and long monologues.

Glamorgan is a short play which is the first story of the Pendragon family. Most of Nigro's play, I discovered in reading this, are actually about members of the Pendragon family through history. This tells how Jane Griffith came to fall in love with the Lord of Pendragon Castle and how their progeny made the trip to America. It's a lot less academic and more poetic and strange that I've made it sound here.

The Weird Sisters is a monologue where a young woman named Grushenka explains that she's stopped reading Dostoyevsky but has developed pounding headaches which she thinks might be a sign that she has a twin living in her skull, an unborn fetus who tells her all the flaws in her looks, suggests how she might kill herself or others and urges her to "...violent acts of copulation with dangerous looking strangers on the subway."

Fair Rosamund and her Murderer is a two person play about Rosamund, one of the mistresses of Henry II. Henry was so jealous he constructed a labyrinth for her to live in but Eleanor still found out about her and sent (naturally) the Murderer to hunt her down. The Murderer, it turns out, is not a killer at all but was simply the thief in the next cell who spoke up in hopes of being hung. He was given this task instead and promptly becomes lost in the labyrinth. When he finally finds Rosamund, they become lovers.

Within the Ghostly Mansion's Labyrinth. The labyrinth is the connective tissue of this anthology. This piece is a long monologue performed by widow of the heir to the Winchester Riffle fortune. She was told by her husband's ghost that she must construct a house for all the spirits of those killed by Winchester riffles through time. At first things were fairly calm, she did things like hold banquets for all the ghosts, but now she is coming to believe that house is such a maze of rooms, dead ends and oddities because she will have to use it to hide from the ghosts looking to kill her.

Give Us a Kiss and Show Us Your Knickers. If I were taking a directing class and had to select a short play for a one-act festival, this one would be it. Amy and Page are roommates, Amy's newest boyfriend, Wes, is coming over to meet Page and Amy is all a twitter because she has had terrible luck with men and thinks Wes might finally be the right guy she needs. She excuses herself to the bathroom just before Wes arrives, leaving Wes and Page to chat for 5 pages. Plenty of time to Page to explain to Wes all of Amy's theories that Benny Hill Show contains all the secrets of life, her suicide attempts and how she once attacked a man with an ice pick for getting on her nerves. Wes, of course, runs for the hills but everything will be okay because Amy always has Page. "Always. I promise. Always."

Necropolis is another 2 person script about a man discovering his one-night stand in an unnamed Eastern European country is actually a sniper. There is a lot of meat there, but you'll have more fun discovering all of it for yourself, really.

Squirrels. Hazel delivers a long monologue about how she was rather shocked to give birth, not to babies, but to a furry ocean of squirrels. It's a great monologue I would love to do someday, just not in front of the children. After the squirrels all run away, she has my favorite line in this entire anthology "I grieved, I got psychiatric help for the cat. Now we're better."

Major Weir. A 2 person play about Major Weir, or more accurately, his ghost, He was hung for satanic practices, bestiality and for having sexual relations with his younger, barking mad sister. Or perhaps he was just an innocent man and these were all delusions placed in his head by her madness.

Since I spent my Permanent Fund Dividend on plays in 2005, I have been trying to read 3 plays a week. Most of these are childrens plays, given where I work, some are one acts, some are re-reading scripts I haven't seen since college. I've been doing pretty well at holding myself to this goal and today I decided to share some of the fruits of this project with you.

Please remember not all fruits arrive in the store still fresh and succulent.

The Arkansaw Bear by Aurand Harris

This is a childrens play that "...directly confronts the subject of death."

Really.

The forward mentions that, when it was written in 1980, the subject was deemed too controversial for young audiences. If they are trying to explain why not many people wanted to perform it, I think they might have to face the fact that it is Not a Very Good Script.

In a nutshell, the play is about a little girl named Tish. When Tish is told that her Grandfather is dying, she runs away and makes a wish on the first star of the night that her Grandfather could live forever. When that wish is rejected, she tries to wish that no one will ever die. Thwarted again, Tish finally, successfully, wishes that she could understand why Grandpa has to die.

What she gets is a play with The World's Greatest Dancing Bear, a Little Bear, and a Mime.

The Mime is probably the first indication that this is Not Going To Be A Very Good Script.

The second might be the admonishment from the playwright (in stage direction) that The World's Greatest Dancing Bear is to be "...loveable, like a teddy bear. He does NOT (emphasis his) wear an animal mask, nor is the actor's face to be painted, frightening, or grotesque with animal makeup." There are also stage directions that "Never is the stage dark, eerie or frightening." This is a play about death, after all.

The Bear is running from the Ringmaster, who is death. The Bear is very frightened of dying and, with Tish's help, convinces the Ringmaster to give him until the last hour of this, his last day. Then Tish gets the Bear to wish on a star for someone to teach all of dances so he will always be remembered. Thus enters Little Bear, in overalls, a straw hat and carrying a fishing pole (this is Arkansas, after all.)

Little Bear begins learning all of the Bear's dances, but not before he explains that his Grandpa Bear and Papa Bear both died but he learned that the secret is to tell them goodbye and give your most to the living. When the Ringmaster comes back, the trio panics and Tish wishes death to be imprisoned in a tree. (does this just keep getting better and better or what?) This time the star remembers to tell everyone that all wishes go away at dawn which, thankfully, only gives the Bear 10 more minutes to teach Little Bear the Russian Dance, the Polka, the tarantella and how to bow.

At last, with The World's Most Famous Dancing Bear dying, the bears explain to Tish that ""Life is like a bright balloon." Hold it tight. Hold it tight. Because...once you let it go...it floats away forever." and they ask her to whistle "O Susannah" as the Bear goes into the great center ring because you can't whistle and cry at the same time.

At the end of the night, Tish returns home to explain to her grieving family that now Grandpa has died, you have to let go of the balloon, that he's left a chip off the old block, that she has a right to go in there to give him flowers and she'll whistle while doing it because you can't cry and whistle at the same time.

That was an exciting new fuck up on the last post, wasn't it? Let's try this again...

Okay, I am far too spacey to think of clever questions today, so once again it is ghost_lightjeopardy day - I shall provide the answers and you log in to suggest the questions. You can even vote for the best ones later on if you really want to make it special.

1. Underneath the Christmas Tree

2. Marsupial

3. Because it is more fun than bowling.


I just started a new Steven Dietz play. I had almost forgotten how funny he is. This play is almost reading like a Jonathan Carrol novel - the premise is that this guy has decided that there is a place in the universe where all the roads we never took converge, so he has put everything he owns out in the yard with a sign that says "Here's My Life. Make an Offer", cut a skylight in the attic and set his recliner under it so he can keep watch. The friend that we think is the sane one who is trying to talk him down has just revealed that he heard God tell him to build and ark and he can take whatever and whoever he wants on it.

Great dialog so far:

Louise: You think in a parallel world everything is perfect? You think it all works out?

Donny: Don't you?

Louise: Absolutely not. I think we all make the same mistakes in new and interesting ways.

Okay, I am far too spacey to think of clever questions today, so once again it is ghost_light jeopardy day - I shall provide the answers and you log in to suggest the questions. You can even vote for the best ones later on if you really want to make it special.


1. Underneath the Christmas Tree


2. Marsupial


3. Because it is more fun than bowling.



I just started a new Steven Dietz play. I had almost forgotten how funny he is. This play is almost reading like a Jonathan Carrol novel - the premise is that this guy has decided that there is a place in the universe where all the roads we never took converge, so he has put everything he owns out in the yard with a sign that says "Here's My Life. Make an Offer", cut a skylight in the attic and set his recliner under it so he can keep watch. The friend that we think is the sane one who is trying to talk him down has just revealed that he heard God tell him to build and ark and he can take whatever and whoever he wants on it.

Great dialog so far:

Louise: You think in a parallel world everything is perfect? You think it all works out?

Donny: Don't you?

Louise: Absolutely not. I think we all make the same mistakes in new and interesting ways.

So much to say and so little desire to write.

In the last couple of days we had our new bed frame delivered. It's gorgeous and it is HUGE. We had such an adventure getting it inside at 10 at night, just Mark and I, with me trying not to lift. We dinged it in a few places, but none too terribly. Markis trying to decide how best to fix it, wax or a sharpie.

Based on comments,we named our Roomba. She is Rosie. Mark is now on a quest to rememebr what Rosie on the Jetsons sounded like and I want to make her a little white maid hat/tiara.

The treadmill arrived today. Mark reordered the living room to better fit it. He thinks I hate the arrangement because my first comment was that it made our living room very small, but what I meant was that it is not really entertaining size but is a nice, intimate size for just the two of us.

Mark came home very late last night because of tech. I spent the night reading after having dinner with a friend. I re-read "A Woman in Mind" which is one of my favorite Alan Ayckbourn plays. It was the first one I'd ever seen and I am still haunted by the ending - Susan standing there speaking in her own language that no one else can understand crying "December bee? December choosy?" I have recommended it to one of the theatre companies in town and I wanted to give it another read before I lent out my copy to make sure there was not anything they might object to that I didn't remember.

I followed that up with one of Ayckbourn's childrens plays "This Is Where We Came In". Dear God, I laughed until I cried. I tried to imagine how to explain it and the best I could come up with was "It's 6 Characters Trying to Ditch Their Authors". Basically there is a group of Story Players, who act out the stories as the Story Tellers spin them. The Story Tellers are older than death, one of them tells the same things over and over, one can't remember things and the third gets everything wrong. Which leads to moments like "And this is the story of Grethel and Hansel. ("so far so good") who live at the edge of the forest with their father (Albert dons Woodsman attire.) who is a plumber." Having slept on it, I love the play even more.

Tonight I went to see "Back of the Throat". Mark just blew me out of the water. I was so impressed by his acting. The entire cast was dead soild. He kind of warned me that the script starts out great and thne gets really weird but I was riveted from start to finish. I teared up at the end. The audience was small, but none of us left when the lights came up, every one of us stayed to talk to the director and actors. I think that says a lot.

We went to see Veronica at Blues Central after that, which was a kick. We were totally "that table" yelling and screaming "We love you" after every song. We even danced like white guys right there at the table.

Oh, huge news flash - I will be appearing ON STAGE at the Overnighters. Yep, they only let me out of the booth about once a year and it will be on Sunday. Please send Diet Coke.