Some songs are not for singing, some thoughts are not for thinking all the time.
Yep, the title says it all. I've been going through a lot, and I'm just trying not to read too much, not to self-diagnose too much, not to think "cancer," because that is step 30 and at least 2 doctors away, and I am on step 4 maybe. I realized this morning that there is nothing wrong with me today that hasn't been wrong with me for at least two months, and I've been only inconvenienced in that time. I can't let labels scare me into thinking I'm not ok. Get up, go to the gym, go to work, eat dinner, watch a movie, go to sleep. All of this, I can do. For once I'm glad no one reads this blog. I don't want to share this with you or even You, just the void.
This is the Sort of Thing that Keeps Me Up Nights (yep, big geek, and too fond of parentheses to boot).
It's hot out tonight. Sticky. I'm completely exhausted but I can't sleep. Woke up at 7 this morning, went to the gym, then spent 3 hours wandering the West Village/High Line Park with a friend. May post later on the park...
Saw a show today that makes me wonder why we put things on stage in the first place. It was definitely quality, well written, acted, directed, produced. Riveting even. And deeply disturbing. Curdled the pit of my stomach. I wanted to leave the theater, or at least look away, but I couldn't. By the moment of crisis, I was convinced I was about to see someone kill themselves quite bloodily on stage, and I really cared (to the writer's credit, he fooled me well).
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Some backstory:
"Whore," by Rick Viede, documents an unlikely friendship between sex workers, a novice who is increasingly haunted by a ghastly series of murdered prostitutes, and an expert who descends into kink, self-loathing and a neurotic obsession with saving money. The way Viede plays the audience off the two main characters is brilliant: you don't see the play truly through the eyes of either one (despite a couple of monologues), and only know what they tell each other about themselves. Like the characters, your footing becomes less and less certain as the play moves forward. The urgency and fear becomes more and more heightened, until, like it or hate it (and there were plenty in the audience that seemed to hate it), you're enthralled.
Right after the show, I was still too full of emotion to think about what I had just seen, but now I can't help wondering what the whole point of it was; "Whore" does the thriller genre so well that you forget to ask. Unfortunately, it doesn't end as a thriller like, for example, "Veronica's Room." The crisis resolves ambiguously, offstage somewhere, and both characters rise above their circumstances, also ambiguously, offstage somewhere. Of course, to tell you this completely spoils the entire effect, but the show closes this weekend and no one reads this blog anyway (I dare you, reader, if you're actually out there, to comment!) so I don't feel too bad about it. I don't actually remember very much about the final scene, because I was preoccupied trying to catch my breath and settle my stomach, but as far as I can tell Tim and Sara both just sort of get over it and move on. Flash forward in time, and they each monologue as well-adjusted adults. Really?
So then my question becomes, why tell this story at all? If it's for the sheer morbid novelty (valid in its own right) then the ending betrays the piece. If it's to document the character's personal evolution, then it would be better served by ending with a continuation or resolution of the immediate story, rather than just informing the audience third-person that there was one. If it's public therapy for the writer (who claims to have based it mostly on people he met while backpacking around the world, as well as some autobiographical content), then I certainly don't want to get deeper into his head than I already am, and probably won't look out for him in the future.
I don't know the answer, but it's still bugging me at 2am: why put this piece on stage?
It's also in interesting juxtaposition with another highly visceral piece I saw in Chicago, but that's probably a subject for another blog: intentional, intellectual participation vs. unintentional, emotional participation. Yep, that's a whole nother can of worms.
Saw a show today that makes me wonder why we put things on stage in the first place. It was definitely quality, well written, acted, directed, produced. Riveting even. And deeply disturbing. Curdled the pit of my stomach. I wanted to leave the theater, or at least look away, but I couldn't. By the moment of crisis, I was convinced I was about to see someone kill themselves quite bloodily on stage, and I really cared (to the writer's credit, he fooled me well).
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Some backstory:
"Whore," by Rick Viede, documents an unlikely friendship between sex workers, a novice who is increasingly haunted by a ghastly series of murdered prostitutes, and an expert who descends into kink, self-loathing and a neurotic obsession with saving money. The way Viede plays the audience off the two main characters is brilliant: you don't see the play truly through the eyes of either one (despite a couple of monologues), and only know what they tell each other about themselves. Like the characters, your footing becomes less and less certain as the play moves forward. The urgency and fear becomes more and more heightened, until, like it or hate it (and there were plenty in the audience that seemed to hate it), you're enthralled.
Right after the show, I was still too full of emotion to think about what I had just seen, but now I can't help wondering what the whole point of it was; "Whore" does the thriller genre so well that you forget to ask. Unfortunately, it doesn't end as a thriller like, for example, "Veronica's Room." The crisis resolves ambiguously, offstage somewhere, and both characters rise above their circumstances, also ambiguously, offstage somewhere. Of course, to tell you this completely spoils the entire effect, but the show closes this weekend and no one reads this blog anyway (I dare you, reader, if you're actually out there, to comment!) so I don't feel too bad about it. I don't actually remember very much about the final scene, because I was preoccupied trying to catch my breath and settle my stomach, but as far as I can tell Tim and Sara both just sort of get over it and move on. Flash forward in time, and they each monologue as well-adjusted adults. Really?
So then my question becomes, why tell this story at all? If it's for the sheer morbid novelty (valid in its own right) then the ending betrays the piece. If it's to document the character's personal evolution, then it would be better served by ending with a continuation or resolution of the immediate story, rather than just informing the audience third-person that there was one. If it's public therapy for the writer (who claims to have based it mostly on people he met while backpacking around the world, as well as some autobiographical content), then I certainly don't want to get deeper into his head than I already am, and probably won't look out for him in the future.
I don't know the answer, but it's still bugging me at 2am: why put this piece on stage?
It's also in interesting juxtaposition with another highly visceral piece I saw in Chicago, but that's probably a subject for another blog: intentional, intellectual participation vs. unintentional, emotional participation. Yep, that's a whole nother can of worms.
Me/Chicago/Intuition/Analysis/Schooling
I spent most of this past week in Chicago. I had intended to use that to spur on the blogging with a general diary of "today we went to the museum. I love the museum," and so on and so on. It didn't happen. I was too immersed.
I did go to the museums, and I did see some fabulous (as well as some merely good) theater, and ate delicious things and filled my thoughts with art and food and the beautiful water. And I felt better than I've felt in months and months. Part of it, of course, is getting to see someone I almost never get to see, and feeling like the center of attention, but I also spent a fair amount of time on the ride back trying to figure out what happened to me in Chicago. Why did I feel so in focus, so functional? And why did I dread going home so much, because I really really did. My whole body felt like a lump that just scrunched up into a little ball whenever I thought about it.
In some ways, New York has gotten too easy I think. It's not easy to do, but it's easy to understand. I have to seek out things to feel wonder towards. And sure, if I lived in Chicago, it would be just the same, but the reach out of the comfort zone is important, and the vitality of the scene in the 2nd City was much more impressive than I had expected it to be. All I could think was, "Friday night I have to go back to my real life." Wait, what? Isn't everything I do part of my real life? Why can't my real life be like this? And why don't I like this "real life" thing to begin with? In short, what the hell is going on with me?
I love New York. Really, deeply, and truly. I am a New Yorker; it is my home. I hate the off-Broadway electrician thing. Not doing it: I like being at my job, I just can't stand barely supporting myself, no health insurance, having to live with other people, and on top of it all, little to no ownership of the projects I work on, or any kind of reassurance that there will be another project next week or next month. This is no way to live. I need to be assisting on big shows and designing my own, and I'm really not sure how to go about all that.
So then I was thinking and thinking.... and I thought "really I need a path and a plan and a purpose. If I had a way to really fix this, just working at it would make me feel so much better." The obvious solution: Grad School. OY.
I did go to the museums, and I did see some fabulous (as well as some merely good) theater, and ate delicious things and filled my thoughts with art and food and the beautiful water. And I felt better than I've felt in months and months. Part of it, of course, is getting to see someone I almost never get to see, and feeling like the center of attention, but I also spent a fair amount of time on the ride back trying to figure out what happened to me in Chicago. Why did I feel so in focus, so functional? And why did I dread going home so much, because I really really did. My whole body felt like a lump that just scrunched up into a little ball whenever I thought about it.
In some ways, New York has gotten too easy I think. It's not easy to do, but it's easy to understand. I have to seek out things to feel wonder towards. And sure, if I lived in Chicago, it would be just the same, but the reach out of the comfort zone is important, and the vitality of the scene in the 2nd City was much more impressive than I had expected it to be. All I could think was, "Friday night I have to go back to my real life." Wait, what? Isn't everything I do part of my real life? Why can't my real life be like this? And why don't I like this "real life" thing to begin with? In short, what the hell is going on with me?
I love New York. Really, deeply, and truly. I am a New Yorker; it is my home. I hate the off-Broadway electrician thing. Not doing it: I like being at my job, I just can't stand barely supporting myself, no health insurance, having to live with other people, and on top of it all, little to no ownership of the projects I work on, or any kind of reassurance that there will be another project next week or next month. This is no way to live. I need to be assisting on big shows and designing my own, and I'm really not sure how to go about all that.
So then I was thinking and thinking.... and I thought "really I need a path and a plan and a purpose. If I had a way to really fix this, just working at it would make me feel so much better." The obvious solution: Grad School. OY.
