American Shakespeare Center this Winter

I just saw Measure for Measure at Blackfriars in Staunton, Va. I work for the American Shakespeare Center now, so take my opinion for what it's worth, but I really liked it this time around. Last time I saw it, I caught the matinée. I guess I shouldn't go to matinées. I hate matinées. Maybe I always have.

I don't have the stub because I got there just in time for curtain and was rushed in.

Pretty soon, they are going to do a bunch of Christmas plays, A Christmas Carol and Santaland Diaries. I am looking forward to seeing both. I've never seen a play by David Sedaris, and I have had a lot friends over the years who have sworn by his work. Excited.

Two actors, John Harrel and Chris Seiler are playing the elf, and I get to see both of them. Harrel is one of my favorite actors.


Another favorite is James Keegan, who will be playing Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.

Theater is Pornography

I am sitting here trying to review Woman's Will's great Macbeth. I'm in Orange County, California, Newport Beach. The only cafe around here is Peet's Coffe & Tea.

I try to get onto the Womanswill.org to get some skinny, and it turns out, Peet's filter thinks it's porn. Woman's Will is a theater troupe that does Shakespearean productions with an all-woman cast. Although that might seem pornographic to some imbeciles, it is definitely not.

When my laptop told me that Woman's Will was pronography, I actually said out loud "you gotta be fucking kidding me!" I started laughing, but now I'm a little angry. I hate internet filters. I hate anything that tells me what is taboo and what isn't. To build a fence around an acting group that does community outreach and education is reprehensible, more reprehensible than anything I can find online. There is a lot of nasty shit online, and this is worse, Peet's Coffee & Tea, this is worse.

Beowulf on Ashby

I saw Beowulf a while back and loved it. I went with a friend of mine who happens to be a very beautiful woman and writer from Washington or some other state that borders Canada. She's always late, so I thought we weren't going to actually make it in on time. But she got there at the last possible second, and we even got good seats. The show was extended and sold out, this being the last weekend, so I lucked out that she didn't flake. I would have had to sit by myself.

The show is amazing. I loved it.

Afterward, we were walking to a bar, and she got a call from one of her "girlfriends" who was hving some kind of breakdown because of a break-up. She ended up talking with her "girlfriend" for most of our walk. After hanging up, we talked about the "Sex in the City" movie. Do you ever get the feeling that all the posturing and exclaiming women do about how "super important" their "girlfriends" are is all just for show, that it's all a sham? When women tell me that their little circle of friends are so much like a fictional TV show, I can't help but think that they have been duped by a fantasy. I also find "girls night out" or "boys night out" kind of offensive. I have friends that include men and women, and I don't think there is a division on gender lines. Sometimes those gender lines become uncrossable borders by the double standards of the women I know, but never by me or my male friends. The very idea that my male friends would want to have a special night on which we don't invite any women out with us is ludicrous, and I don't think we would do anything differently if we did.

We got to the bar and she told me a familiar story about how some guy who wanted to take her to an exotic location. I've heard this story a million times, and I'm always surprised that men actually invite women they hardly know to exotic locations. It must work sometimes. But my friend said, "I'm not a whore, you can't just get this for free."
"Well," I said, "I think he was trying to buy it with that trip."
"Well, I'm not that cheap either."
"You just called yourself a whore."

Anyway, Beowulf was crazy good and hilarious. You should see it if you live in New York. Banana Bag and Bodice company will be putting on the show in April at Harry de Jur Playhouse.

Obama & Mercutio

When Obama quotes "Romeo & Juliet," I fall in love all over again.

Hamlet 2 in Orinda

Shark and I took the Harleys to Orinda last night to see Hamlet 2 at the cool old theater they have out there, which apparently is a building in every SimCity game ever made because the software company that made them all, Maxis, used to hold offices in the same building. I have a friend who works for them. It's a very nice theater. A bit old-worldy.

Down the street from the theater is a bar, the oldest bar in town, a cowboy spot that used to be pretty much the only other structure in the city according to an ancient arial photo. We went in for a drink.
If the terrorists attack, Orinda will survive. Casa Orinda has more guns than a Kentucky whorehouse on a Sunday at churchtime. The old man with the white Stetson and the gray suit sipped his soup, keeping one hand on his beatin' stick even when he brought up his dirty martini for a wincing slurp.

Oxen yokes serve as lighting fixtures for this old saloon, leaving just enough light by which to tell the old man was squinting his eyes at me. The bartender said he didn't want his picture taken, but I took it anyway. He told me the 85-lbs shotgun over the bar was built by Remington for shooting 40 birds at a time. The old Stetson man grabbed his beating stick a little tighter, and a woman laughed somewhere. There were people having dinner in the nice restaurant part, and I noticed that the fireplace said "Whoever sits round these hearth stones shall speak no evil of any living creature."

"'Nother round?" asked the tender.
"Nah, gotta a show to catch. Thanks." I knocked on the bar and tipped an imaginary hat at the Stetson man, who winced at me.

Shark and I checked the bikes and went in to see Hamlet 2. I reviewed it for PlayShakespeare.com. Should be up soon.

All's Well that Ends Well @ Shakespeare Santa Cruz

Every time I see "All's Well that Ends Well," I like it more. Shakespeare Santa Cruz is no exception. My friend flaked on me (poets!) at the last second, so I had to drive that crazy fast Lexus there myself and there was an empty chair next to me, but I soon forgot my loneliness when the lights went down. The scene between the Countess (Beth Dixon) and Helena (Rachel Fowler) was incredible, and I loved every second of it. Caitlin FitzGerald, who played Juliet in R&J, played Diana here, which is cute since their last names are so similar, and I liked that.

Everything was pretty strong. Lavatch (John Pribyl) and Lafew (Richard Farrell) were delightful, and Parolles (Allen Gillmore) was as wonderful here as he was in "Bach at Leipzig."

I didn't dig the soldier costumes that looked a bit camp or something, and I don't understand why people seem to think that a fistula will make a French king speak excruciatingly slow, but the offenses are forgivable in light of everything else.

My friend missed out. But you don't have to. "All's Well that Ends Well" runs until August 31st in the best-smelling theater the world has ever known. There are deer that hang out in front of the glen, and if you arrive early, there are several nice spots to watch the sunset on UC Santa Cruz's massive campus. If picnicking isn't your bag, or basket, you can check out Saturn in downtown SC, one of my favorite vegetarian spots in the whole world. Saturn is like a 50's diner but the shakes are vegan. So freaking delicious that I often click my heels and wish Saturn would sell the cafe and come live with me here. Sometimes I devise elaborate schemes in which I enlist a local to seduce Saturn and follow Saturn to Oakland, where I reveal it was not the local strumpet Saturn loved at all, but me, and now Saturn has to marry me!

Strong Finish!

"Burn This" @ Shakespeare Santa Cruz

"Burn This" is good. I liked Yvonne Woods and everyone else in the play. I think it's a bit like "Friends" if "Friends" took place in a realer world with realer people who felt lonely even while they were barreling toward their dreams and surrounded by people who love them. The characters face issues so real, in fact, that it made me feel kind of empty at the end because it reminded me too much of the sadness and torture of an artist.

I don't mean to say that I disliked the play; I did. But the emptiness in my stomach at the end struck me a little harder than I expected.

"Burn This" is written by Lanford Wilson. The play's about artists and writers living in the big city. Being a writer and artist in a big city, I identified myself too much with the characters. There's an advertising person who feels like a whore. I used to be in advertising. There's a rich novelist who's sold out and negative about his art, looking for something better. I've been there, though I've never written a novel, but I remember having too much money and developing a seething hatred for illustration and graphics. And there's a dancer who is good at what she does, but seems to feel like no one cares because maybe no one really does and when you're stuck in a tiny secluded world like dancing, it's hard to get perspective on anything. What can be more like the world of poetry?

"Burn This" is what would happen if all the people in "Friends" were artists whose worst fears were realities in a cruel and unforgiving world. Instead of the human tendency to self-destruct being on their back burners, it's right there in front. Instead of the slow burn everyone else feels behind their ribs, they're in flames and there's no amount of clever witticisms that can help.

I wish Lanford Wilson had written a play that included at least some of the good stuff about being an artist, but the way it is, I'm left wondering if there is any.

If you want to know kind of what it's like to be an artist, you should come see this play. It's running until August 31.