The Designated Mourner–Week 2

We are now three rehearsals in to The Designated Mourner and I have reached an incontrovertible conclusion: this play is hard.

Here’s the deal: You’ve got three characters. Jack–a youngish intellectual, his wife Judy, and her father Howard. Howard is a luminary of the intellectual / artistic establishment. He’s all anti-government and stuff. Oh, also the government becomes increasingly totalitarian and starts incarcerating artists and intellectuals. Including Howard.

Wait, let me try this again. See, there are these three characters and they speak to the audience. Occasionally to each other, but mostly to the audience. Two of them are married. One is the woman’s father. And they talk a lot. Some of them are dead.

Let me try again–the government cracks down on intellectuals, in the process extinguishing a very special little group of people who know how to read John Donne. Jack, the designated mourner, spends many words mourning them. Designatedly.

Right. So it seems to me like there are at least two ways into the play. The first is to take it as a statement about repression and the value (and power) of art in an oppressive world. Those are kind of abstract concepts. Honestly, that reading of the play doesn’t do much for me as an actor or as a reader.

A second way into the play is to look at it as a story about the relationship between Jack, Judy, and Howard. All the government stuff is background, circumstances, important but not central to the story. It can be, at its core, a story about the transformative power of love and loss in the life of an emotionally blocked/stunted man.

Now all I have to do is act all emotionally block and stunted. It’ll be a stretch, but. . .

Statement of (Temporary) Repurposification

I do hereby announce the temporary suspension of warlike preparations against the chubby cherubic archer known as “Cupid” or “Asshole” depending on whom you ask. This suspension does not in any way indicate that these preparations, meditations and ruminations are unimportant. Quite the contrary: they are of paramount importance.

It is, in fact, because they are so important that I am suspending them. I simply do not have the time to devote to properly delving into the effort.

But never fear: these pages shall not remain blank!

I do hereby further announcify that this “blog” shall be temporarily repurposed as a Rehearsal Diary documenting preparations for a production of “The Designated Mourner” by Wallace Shawn to be mounted in May at the venerable Son of Semele Ensemble. I will be essaying the role of “Jack.” It’s a monster–lots of words, many in chunks of verbiage that span multiple pages.

If you dare to read along, you’ll get to follow me as I go from some measure of confidence to a puddle of insecure goo. I’m guessing that’ll happen in a couple of weeks. For the moment, two rehearsals in, I’m mostly excited, jazzed, and stimulated in a non-sexual way. At first read, the play impressed me. Now that I’ve started to work on it in semi-earnest, it’s kind of amazing. Intricately constructed on at least 4 different levels. Maybe 5. You can read about the play here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Designated_Mourner

Be sure to visit often as I have a complete meltdown. It’s all very exciting!

The Gamerz: Infiltration!

I had been observing the Gamerz for days, my eyes peering at them from behind a copy of LA Weekly.  Or The Onion.  To avoid detection, I would wear different caps.  Sometimes I’d wear sunglasses.  Whatever it took to conceal my interest.

A Good Disguise is key to effective infiltration!

My plan was to nonchalantly approach the Gamerz, offer to buy them coffee, wow them with my arcane knowledge of their world (secret handshakes, obscure rules, complex algorithms for determining the probability of rolls on a 20 sided die), and then avail myself of their strategic know-how.  These were hard core geeks–they would never speak to someone not of their clan.

On the appointed day, I strolled into the coffee shop decked out in my finest geek-wear.  I won’t go into too much detail, but I will tell you that a fanny pack was involved.  I sat, ever so casually, within earshot of my targets.  They were in a heated discussion over a game called “Aufwinder Nach Blitzen” or something like that.  It apparently involved blimps invading a hidden city in the Swiss Alps:

The Gamerz

In the Den of the Gamerz

In any ongoing campaign–whether it be one of world domination or one involving matters of the heart–strategy is key.  With this in mind, I took some time this weekend to take a trip into the very heart of strategic thinking.  I journeyed, friends, into the Den of the Gamerz.

They gather on Sunday afternoons, dribbling into a Local Coffee Shop in ones and twos.  Some tote bags filled with large rectangular boxes.  These boxes hold games.  Not normal games–no Chutes and Ladders, no Candyland, Sorry, or Yahtzee.  These are games with names like “Warlords of Cthulu” or “Campaignia Aromatica” or “Battle Wizards and DragonFire.”

By two pee emm, the Gamerz have assembled around two or three tables, all smushed together.  They huddle over the rules of their obscure games, puzzling over technicalities, before diving in.  Interpretting the rules often takes two or three hours.  They do not start playing until 5 or so.

Now, for a fair spell, I merely watched the Gamerz.  Usually with a sense of disdain.  “What losers,” I thought while sipping a latte, “All they do is play games and wear ugly t-shirts.  They probably don’t even have girlfriends.”  Then, about three weeks ago, I had a moment of meta-realization:  I, too, wear ugly t-shirts.  I, too, have no girlfriend.  And I didn’t even have the Gamerz to keep me company.

And so it was that I decided, this weekend, to infiltrate their ranks.  To become, even if only temporarily (for, truth be told, I’ve always hated board games), a Gamer.  To absorb, osmoticly, their strategic skills.  And to port these skills into my own life.

Over the next few days, I’ll share what I learned from these adventurers on the fringe of the board game establishment.  For the time being, suffice it to say that my mind has been blown.

Members Only: When you put it on. . .

Late last week, I finally started feeling better.  My sinus passages were reasonably unclogged.  I could hear clearly.  I wasn’t doubling over in fits of phlegmatic coughing.  Clearly, it was time to get back to My Mission.

So I donned my trusty Members Only jacket and went to my local watering hole to do some research into this thing called ‘love.’  I didn’t meet any women.  But I did meet a guy named Darius.  His bloodshot eyes conveyed wisdom.  “Darius,” I said, sipping my Cosmo, “What is the secret of love?”

He looked at me and snorted.  “Members Only, huh?  When you put it on, something happens!”

Then he collapsed face down into a bowl of peanuts.

I decided to test his statement.  Which also happens to be Members Only’s company tag-line.  Here is what happened.

Waylaid by Puppies of Memory

I’ve been absent for the past week, waylaid and bogged down in the alleys of memory.  Also waylaid and bogged down by pernicious disease.  My brain still be foggy.  While I work on the defogging, enjoy this picture of a sick puppy:

Me if I were a puppy. And not sitting at a computer.

Another Mating Call of the Successfully Coupled

So I tried AJ’s mating call this week.  It did not go well.  I may share the experience with you once the emotional and physical scars have healed.  In the meantime, the search for love’s secret continues.

This time, we’re looking at a female mating call.  Specifically, Elaine’s mating call.  A few months ago, Elaine entered the Land of Coupledom.  When I barged into her place shortly after the Accent Incident to ask her how she had done it–how she had attracted her guy Friday–she reached under her couch and showed me a cube of many colors.

I had seen this cube, or one just like it, before.  I shook my head.  “No, you can’t–”

She interrupted me with a swift karate chop to the neck.  And then she. . .well, just watch.