When I'm onstage, please talk back to me.

Last night at during a performance of The Comedy of Errors, I experienced the incredible joy of having children in the audience speak back at us, like they were characters in the show (as indeed they are!) These boys were two friends about 9, one black and one white, both dressed like they were colorful cartoon characters complete with striped shirts, red sneakers and backwards baseball caps. They sat in the front row, laughing and elbowing each other.

During the fifth act, Balthazar and the Courtesan (Dave & yours truly) stand on the sidelines of the back of the stage as all the plot highjinks get worked out by the other characters. These two kids talked to us throughout the whole scene. They were totally with the story of the show. For example:

On Antipholus not recognizing his father Egeon: "Oh, that's cold."
On the reveal that the Abbess is actually the twins long lost mother: "That's their mom, right??"
On our collective "OHHH" after said reveal: "You guys just got that??"
On the Courtesan getting her ring back: "You got your ring back! That's great!"
On Antipholus kissing Adriana, the bearded woman: "She's got a beard! Doesn't anyone else notice that!"
On Dave and I shimmying: "Look at that man shaking it!"
On the Riverdance at the end of the play: "I know this! This is Irish dancing!" (they begin to imitate our arm movements)
On the play in general: "I'm about to stand up and tell everyone this doesn't make sense!"

It is the best feeling as a performer to look out into the audience and see people, young and old, with smiles plastered on their faces. Audience members look aglow as they watch Luciana, the mermaid, grow legs after receiving true love's kiss. In times like these, it is no small feat to bring 500 people together to smile, let alone laugh and cheer.

Ephesus, as Kurt Rhoads has created it, is a magical place where everyone is a freak of sorts, so therefore no one is a freak. The Comedy of Errors is a play about finding your other half, your soul's mate. It's an absurd tale about becoming whole again. That's not so silly after all.

 

Photo: Will Marsh

Power of Theater for Change

Let us hope that one day—please, not too far in the future—we’ll be able to convince or force our governments, our leaders, to do the same; to ask their audiences– us–what they should do, so as to make this world a place to live and be happy in—yes, it is possible—rather than just a vast market in which we sell our goods and our souls. Let’s hope. Let’s work for it!

-Games for Actors and Non-Actors, by Augusto Boal

A Hamlet Thought of the Day

In Act V, Scene i, Hamlet has returned from England and has been challenged to a fencing match by Laertes,  his childhood friend who now desires revenge because Hamlet killed his father and drove his sister Ophelia to her death. Horatio, Hamlet's only confidant, warns him that the fight may be a trap and that he should make some excuse to exempt him from the match. Hamlet replies with these beautiful lines about our own mortality:

There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be, 'tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all, since no man of aught he leaves knows what is't to leave betimes. Let be.
    -Hamlet, Act V, Scene i


I was struck last night hearing Matt Amendt speak this line in the last act of Hamlet. I will paraphrase it as I understand it:

"God plans for the death of even the littlest birds. If it (the moment I shall die) is here, then it's not coming. If it's not coming, then it is here. If it is not here, it still will come. All we can do is prepare our souls and live every day. Since no man knows what he leaves behind when he dies, what does it matter if we die early? Let it go."

What marvelous gems Shakespeare has hidden for us in this 4 hour play! (Hudson Valley's production, I thank ye, is only 3 hours, thanks to nearly 1,000 lines cut.) In the most famous speech from much earlier in the play, To be or not to be, Hamlet debates the question of living and death, action and inaction. But it is in Act V where the Prince of Denmark beautifully expresses the uselessness of fearing our own deaths. We must "let be" because we can never know when our time will come. Our moment of death is coming every moment that has not arrived. "The readiness is all" in Shakespeare's time would have referred to preparation of his immortal soul through confession and the holy writs. But in modern times, a perhaps more appropriate meaning is "living every moment is all."

As I stood under the tent along the Hudson River, smelling honeysuckles, surrounded by astoundingly talented people, performing Shakespeare's greatest tragedy, I felt incredibly blessed to be alive, incredibly blessed to be.

The Three Weeks in NYC Hit List (plus a few Mondays off)

A completely biased list based on solely my opinion.

Best Quote:

"Maura, your phone is so vintage that it's cool."

Yep, everyone in NYC has a smart phone, it's like being in the future. Bob and I pride ourselves on our lack of need for them... but then again, we often seem to be lost.

Best Park:

The High Line, Chelsea. This park is New York City's newest park, made by converting miles of raised rail lines into grassy areas and benches. Perfect for a stroll, perusing the local artists who display their wares there, an impromptu knitting circle, or getting a lovely view of the Lady Liberty.

Best Salon:

Sam Brocato Salon, SOHO. Caroline Cooney recommended this salon to me. If you want NYC swanky salon treatment at a North Carolina price, make an appointment with a "New Talent" stylist at this Salon, (make sure they are "new talent," cause you can't afford the other people). I was very happy with the way my hair turned out and even purchased some of their line of leave-in actives. I felt pretty glam.

Best Rooftop Bar:
Birreria, the beautiful brew pub on top of Eataly, Madison Square Park. Clayton Fox took me to this new brew pub in Manhattan. Here you can drink delicious cask ales brewed in collaboration with Dogfish Head, Baladin and Del Borgo just 30 feet from where you sit. A lovely view of the skyline transported me above the busy city below to an Italian summer's day.

Best Pricey Seafood:

Ocean Grill, the Upper West Side. Matt and Rich took me to their favorite restaurant and it was amazing. First off, you've never had a better chopped salad than the one they make. I know, what can be so great about a chopped salad? I don't know. But this one is SO GREAT. For my entree, I had the Blackened Swordfish with Chorizo Whipped Potatoes, Broccolini and Chipotle Red Wine Sauce. The portions were perfect and the fish was cooked to perfection.

Best Thrifty Date Place:

Bianca, the East Village. You really can get your money's worth at this great tiny Italian place in the Village. The dining room opens onto charming Bleeker street. The vino is choice. I had the "Tagliolini Ai Frutti di Mare with clams, mussels, calamari and shrimps sauteed in garlic, extra -virgin olive oil and lite tomato sauce." All that for $11.50! This place is full of simple goodness and NYC romance.

Best Pricey Performance:

PUNCHDRUNK'S Sleep No More. This 3 hour sensory experience is a thrilling, film noir version of Shakespeare's Macbeth. The audience, behind the anonymity of their birdlike masks, is given free rein to wander through the McKittrick Hotel. You can rifle through Lady Macbeth's desk and read her private letters to the King, follow Macbeth through the graveyard as he is tormented by the three witches, or spend some time in a pre-war psychiatric ward. PUNCHDRUNK "has pioneered a game changing form of immersive theatre in which roaming audiences experience epic storytelling inside sensory theatrical worlds. Blending classic texts, physical performance, award-winning design installation and unexpected sites, the company's infectious format rejects the passive obedience usually expected of audiences." Plus Neil Patrick Harris was there the night Susanna and I went. Totally worth the week's wages I spent on it. (Don't fret, I don't make that much a week...)

Best Free Performance:
Asscat at the Upright Citizens Brigade. Sunday nights at 9:30 the Upright Citizens Brigade puts on a free Improv show. $3 PBR. The talent is fabulous: Horatio Sanz, Zach Woods, and Bobby Moynihan performed the night we went. Get there early, eat McDonalds in line, you'll make friends, you'll laugh, you may even give the most mocked suggestion of the night.
[Performer: "Give me a movie everyone has seen." Susanna: "The Notebook!"]

Best Place to NOT buy a vegetable quesadilla:
The Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, Fulton Pier, Brooklyn. After the failed quest for Chicago's finest hot dogs, we settle for a quesadilla from the stand and have this interaction:

Man at stand, completely serious, in broken English: "We have two kinds of quesadillas, chicken and vegetable. But we are all out of vegetable, so which would you like? Chicken or vegetable?
Us: (look at each other, dumbstruck) "Chicken?"

Turned out to be quite good. But the vegetable quesadilla must be freakin amazing, as they are always out of it.

UM/Guthrie Theater BFA Training Program Class of 2011

Zero to Twenty: In honor of the graduating class of 2011
 My graduation speech, by the numbers...
 

0—the number of couples in our class that made it to graduation.

1—piece pants suit that Claire wore in London.

2—minutes, average length of a hug from Ben Gansky

3—This one belongs to the “rule of 3.” My boyfriend has a theory that if you have 3 or more BFAs in a room, all they can talk about is BFA-related topics. Thank you to him and the other non-BFA significant others (you know who you are) who have loved us and put up with us, despite our appalling lack of ability to vary our conversation topics.

4—the number of years we’ve been in college together.

5—The number of years my parents have paid for me to attend college. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

6—The number of other classes, before us and behind us, I’ve had the pleasure of watching. I hope that we sent a good example for those to come.

7—out of 20 of you have played my children in one of our projects or plays. I am honored to be your mother.

 8—We are the 8^th graduating class of this training program, that means that we are actively creating the reputation that the Program has in the world. I hope we all make that reputation one of generous, committed artists.

9—The number of days I have left in Minneapolis before I leave for my first real acting job.

10—Is the number of beats in a line of Shakespeare in iambic pentameter.

11—Of course, is the Class of 2011.

12—The number of the floor that most of us lived on freshmen year in Middlebrook.

13—1300 miles is how far my parents and siblings travel one way every time they came to see my shows.

14—the number of letters in “Guthrie Theater”

15—Represents your 15 minutes of fame… I hope you get at least that.

16--On a scale of 1 to 10, 16 is how sick of you all I’ve been come winter break each year. On a scale of 1 to 10, 16 is also how much I’ll miss you after this is all over.

17—The number of matching glasses and cowboy boots that Judy Bartl has.

18—The number of outstanding teachers and directors I have had in this Program. You have taught me to breathe, dance, think, and live onstage. For that I humbly thank you.

19—The number of extraordinary people I’ve have the pleasure of being trapped in small windowless rooms for hours on end these past years.

20—20 people with bright futures ahead of them. 20 people who are empowered, not limited by their numbers.

I have one more number: infinite. My love, my hopes, my wishes for you… ARE INFINITE

In Memorium for Juliano Mer-Khamis

The global theater community has lost a great advocate for peace. Juliano Mer-Khamis, Artistic Director of the Freedom Theater in the Jenin Refugee Camp, was shot five times by masked gunmen on Monday April 4, 2011. This is a man who was creating theater that was so powerful, it warranted bullets.

This is an excerpt from a paper I wrote last semester on the Khamis' work which I greatly admire.

Khamis and The Freedom Theatre sought to fill a phenomenal cultural void in Jenin. In Khamis’ words, “this is a people in hunger, not for bread, but in hunger for lights, for music, for something except the sewage of the camp and the tanks.” Theater and arts provide needed leisure for people of all ages living under the stress of occupation. Freedom Theater believes in “utilizing the magic and fantasy of theatre to offer some respite for a population that continues to live in a daily reality of violence, aggression and almost total isolation.” The impact of this theater cannot be overstated. Over 16,000 people were in attendance at over 64 performances in 2009. Giving these refugees an opportunity to escape, to go to imaginary places improves the quality of daily life. Theater feeds the soul in a place with tremendous poverty of spirit and hope. Now in it’s 4^th season, The Freedom Theater is busting at the seams and money is the main limitation. A practical man, Khamis tried to keep the community grounded in reality:

They say, ‘The Freedom Theatre, oh, it’s gonna be big, Jenin!’ [I say,] ‘Wait, wait, we don’t have money to pay the bills or the electricity.’ They say, ‘yeah, but we must dream!’ I say, ‘OH!’ I didn’t hear the word dream for a long time here. So hope is there.

Thrifty Finds... or Spring, where are you??

I am moving to New York for the summer to perform at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival! That means I need to get rid of nearly half of my possessions, especially clothes. Thus, Anna and I went to Buffalo Exchange today in Uptown Minneapolis to sell some clothes and perhaps pick up some flirty summer wear. It's not the cheapest of the thrift stores in the Twin Cities, but it is clean and has lots of cool options. Best of all, they bought some of my clothes so I had store credit... With my store credit and the spirit of spring in my heart, I purchased these awesome snakeskin sandals and two vintage dresses.