As this is a blog about writing (and theatre, but mainly writing), I am going to write my reactions to films down as well, focused mainly on the writing. I will never say, "You will like this movie." I will say, I liked it, or I think it is worth seeing for educational purposes, but my opinion is just that, an opinion. That said, on with the blog...:

"Disturbia"
by Christopher B. Landon and Carl Ellsworth

This was an interesting movie. I really liked the first act, and most of the second act, but the last portion of the flick feels so damned rushed. A thriller like this, in my opinion, needs time to breathe, time to build into intensity, yet with this, it feels like the killer is discovered very quickly, very simply, and then the movie is over. The relationships between the characters didn't really have time to develop, and I felt that weakened the film. The dialogue was pretty good, not stellar, though I happen to think that was more from the acting than the script.

I liked the mood of the film. In the early portions of the movie, after the set-up had finished, I felt there was this sense of impending boredom, and then it snapped to a close. It felt like the filmmakers (I don't want to place blame on any one person here) thought a teen audience would be quick to shift their attention elsewhere. I don't think that's the case. I feel that a teen audience would be drawn in by the stories surrounding the protagonist, as real life is. Real life is so chock full of subplots and minor denouement, and I really felt this film was going to echo that, and instead, it fell back into a completely linear and easily wrapped up cookie-cutter thriller. Curses.

My big question with this flick is, was there ever any nod to "Rear Window"? I mean, the film is obviously a re-do of the classic Hitchcock film, yet I don't see any accreditation being given to the writers of "Rear Window" nor to Hitchcock himself... strikes me as odd.

In the end though, I enjoyed the flick. I enjoyed the beginning a lot more than the end, and there's the rub.

"The Trojan Women"
By Euripides
Translated by Edith Hamilton

The wikipedia summary is here, if you are interested.

This play is, in part, fantastic. The anti-war images displayed are of impressive force and poignancy, especially the notion of the lack of victors in a war. It was a powerful move to view the aftereffects of war through the survivors. It was heartbreaking to listen to the women speak of their loss. Add on top of this their realization of the impending Grecian slavery, and it is a rather depressing play.

One thing that struck me was the revenge of the play. This wasn't an experiment or example of Non-violence, this was violence as revenge. Helen, at least in this play, was to be taken back to Greece (Sparta) and torn apart by those who had lost loved ones in the war. It's hard to turn a sympathetic eye to Helen. She's kind of the worst woman ever, in a way. You almost want to hate her. She blames everything that happened on other people... other deities in this case. But I'm not sure I could condemn her to being ripped apart. Maybe I could. I hate her quite a bit, especially for a fictional character. It brings about a good question, if someone's actions resulted in the deaths of thousands of men and women and children, a city's burning... should she face some punishment? My Catholic ethos prompts me to say that God will mete out the punishment, but I'm more willing to say that I'd like to punch her in the face. As I would Dick Cheney. Not a blog about politics, I will stop that there.

In the introduction, Ms. Hamilton says boldly, "The Greatest piece of anti-war literature there is in the world was written 2,350 years ago." Now, take that as you may. It (the introduction) was written in 1937, and certainly some excellent bits of anti-war literature emerged during and after the wars that happened in the latter half of the twentieth century, but I have to admit, "Trojan Women" presents a powerfully negative vision of the effects of war. Is it anti-war? I'm not sure. There are so many instances of revenge being exacted upon the Greeks in order that everyone loses. The opening of the play is a conversation between two Gods, Athena and Poseidon. During the Trojan War, Athena supported the Greeks and Poseidon, Troy. After the war, Athena, apparently, gets a little pissy that the marauding Greeks desecrated her temple, and now she wants Poseidon to promise to kill as many of the home sailing Greeks as possible. Hecuba (wife of Priam, king of Troy) spends quite a bit of time extolling the virtues her son, the Great Greek Killer, displayed, and mentions that, without the war, her son Hector might have passed into oblivion, the Troys never knowing his capabilities as a warrior.

At a time in history like this, when our culture is stuck in the middle of a conflict/war, it's important to attempt to understand the consequences of our actions, beyond the simple statistics. To remember that each person who dies leaves concentric rings of anger, hurt and pain. I think this play does a fantastic job of illuminating that without feeling like it's preaching. In that context, perhaps it is the best piece of anti-war literature available to Us.

"Distracted"
by Lisa Loomer
Directed by Liz Diamond
Presented by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

I saw this show last week, and I'm a little late in writing the review, but, that's the rub. I thought I'd include a little synopsis of the show, but the fine folks at the Oregon Shakes website do it better. Here's the link: Distracted

I thought the acting was superb. I'll say that first out of the gate. OSF has always impressed me with their acting abilities. The actress who played the mother was fascinating, funny, and most important, felt real. Big kudos for her.

The stage was great too. In the round, which I am a big fan of , with a complex lighting grid above dominated by large plasma screens which were used to great effect. The setting was simple, and allowed for exceedingly fluid changes. All the furniture pieces were on wheels, which meant everything moved on and off really fast, and the stagehands seemed to hardly break a sweat. As a former stagehand, I take that into consideration.

The weakest part of the play, for me at least, was the play. I thought every character besides the main (the mother) was a lamentable caricature. Sometimes to an egregious degree. I really appreciated the notion of the play, how to deal with a child in this increasingly distractable world, with a plethora of stimuli attacking us constantly. BUT, I thought the material was presented in an unapologetically biased manner. I wanted a better balance of information presented, not just the liberal anti-drug agenda. Being a child of a medical family, I'd like to think I know a thing or two about what the medical issues raised by the play. That being said, I was immensely distracted from the play by the goofy characters presented, especially the one character that kept breaking through the wall of the show, once was good, but three, four, it just became predictable and lost any power over the audience. There were also a few plot holes, but describing them here might seem a bit pointless unless you've seen the play. That being said, I'll note one that bothered me immensely. At one point, an actor is playing a doctor, and the actor stops playing the doctor, and is, ostensibly, the Actor speaking directly to the mother. Then, the "Actor" exclaims he is not willing to play this quack any longer, and walks off the stage. BUT, the mother takes the plan/advice advocated by the Doctor as the happy method in which she will heal her son's ADHD sans drugs. Anyways...

Is it right to drug a child with ADHD? Is it right to allow a child to run around and disrupt the lives of others, the education of other children because the parent believes drugs are bad for children? Should mental illness be treated any differently than a chronic physical illness? They are all difficult questions, and, from one sense, I appreciate the courage to tackle a subject like this. I just wish it had been done a little better.

My major question for this post: Do playwrights have any obligation to provide unbiased information? OR is it the very nature of a play to present a biased world-view? (Though I would also accept the argument that the two are not mutually exclusive).

Play well kids.

This was an interesting weekend, in which I received my first flight from my Uncle. He's a professional pilot, though mainly a flight instructor. It was a wonderful little adventure, darting about the skies, and feeling the air drafts buffeting the plane about. That, and going from the high mountains to the Oregon coast in a remarkably short time. Ski and Surf...

That being said, it was difficult being around the man because he doesn't see much worth in pursuing the arts. I am proud to be going into an MFA program, and to be having a reading in NY. He belittled me for being twenty-seven and heading into more schooling. I think he'd be happier if I was heading into a fire training program to be a firefighter... I've often thought of being a firefighter, and I am amazed and appreciative of the work they do.

Would that be better? Would I be worth more to society as a firefighter than a writer? Than a theatremaker? It's times like these that I wonder if society needs art. Perhaps that's a clear designation that I am not a true artist. Or maybe it's because my family and my circle is not art based. My family, truth be told, has its history in the military and in medicine. I am the first member of my family to strike out into the arts.

I don't know. I feel this is both what I want to do and what I should be doing. My father tells me it's the puritan work ethic, burning into my head the notion that the sciences are the only facet of academia worth study. But is it?

Hey kids, play nice out there.

"School For Scandal"

Not an amazing piece of literature. Or maybe it was. I got bogged down by the laborious story and thick language. I'm spoiled, I like concise snappy dialogue from contemporary comedies and sitcoms. I did laugh a few times. I read v3 of School for Scandal, which, as far as my limited research told me, was rather tamed down in terms of the arguments between the married couple.

The comedy of manners is a strange little slice of genre, and, like "El Cid" is difficult to fully comprehend in this contemporary climate. I feel, if I understood more about the time period, I would have a larger appreciation for this work.

Comedies are a subjective medium. The same things aren't funny to everyone. I think that's why tragedies manage to translate across time and cultures easier. The majority of people find cruelty to animals or small children sad, or seeing a loved one hurt or die. BUT, not everyone thinks it's funny when a pie hits a socialite in the face.

"El Cid" by Pierre Corneille

This was an interesting piece of classical French Theatre. The editor/ translator of this particular play (Paul Landis)commented in the opening of the inverse attitudes of the English towards Corneille and the French towards Shakespeare. The French find Shakespeare a brutish playwright, while the English consider Corneille a stuck up sticky beak. That's my paraphrasing of Mr. Landis' commentary. Mr.

I do tend to agree with what Mr. Landis has said the English said about Mr. Corneille. In following the rigid rules of Aristotle's "Poetics", Mr. Corneille wrote plays that may have endeared themselves to his French contemporaries. The problem, at least for me, is the same issue I have with classic Greek tragedies. Nothing happens.

I mean, in "El Cid", there are a multitude of events that somehow manage to transpire in a single twenty-four hour period (one of the key tenets according to Aristotle). Roderick and Chimene are in love, the king approves of their marriage and their fathers are happy.

By some slight imagining of an insult, which I neglected to understand or catch, between Roderick's father and Chimene's father, and all of a sudden it necessitates a duel. The young Roderick, at the behest of his own father (more of an outright demand), and Chimene's father is killed. At which point Chimene, even though she declares her undying love for Roderick, she is honor bound to exact revenge for the murder of her father, and wants Roderick dead. But not really. But she does. Not. The moors now mount an offensive against the kingdom, a battle that is miraculously won by Roderick, endearing both king and country to the young man and making the king rather reluctant to order to death of his newest hero. Chimene persists and the king relents, and Roderick is sentenced to a new duel, the survivor of which will wed Chimene. Instead of fighting, Roderick convinces his dueling partner the futility of the fight, and so it ends on a happy note. Oh, except that the king, at the end of the play, tells Roderick to be happy to be engaged, but to take his time before being married, and that during the engagement period, Roderick should go conquer the Moors, Granada, and the rest of Spain.

A busy day.

I found it difficult to connect with the characters, though one wonders if that's the point. I feel Mr. Corneille was more interested in putting forth a portrayal of idealized characters who are able to withstand the rigors placed upon them by the notions and rules of honor. In fact, the whole notion of honor is a difficult concept to capture for a modern audience for whom "honor" is a relatively foreign concept.

To sum: by following the rules established by Aristotle's poetics, Mr. Corneille presented a neo-classical tragedy, that ended happily. It provides an interesting view of the French culture of the time, but I'm not sure it is a play I would propose to a contemporary audience.
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While not the first time I've read this book, it feels like the first time I have paid attention.

As a quick background, the book is a categorization of four types of Theatre, Deadly, Holy, Rough and Immediate.

As a gross generalization, deadly theatre is typified as most commercial theatre, especially most broadway shows, but also as shows which are not challenging. I think he would argue that plays purely for the basis of entertainment fall under the deadly guise; and I would venture a guess that the material or shows we might colloquially call 'Spectacle', would also fall under this category. Brook seems to indicate that the longer a show runs, the more danger the show has of becoming deadly. Most of his talk about deadly concerns the notion of commercialism in theatre. I think there is a real danger in commercial theatre. Anytime art is used as a business, there are bound to be a wide variety of problems, most obviously that the business world and the theatre world operate on different models. Theatre, by its nature as art, is relegated to being judged subjectively. A prototypical business model is to find a product that is innovative and successful, reverse engineer the product to understand its method of construction, then introduce the remade product onto the market one step bigger and bolder with cosmetic enhancements designed to attract new customers. It seems to me that that modus operandi is what generally flows through the American commercial theatre system. Find a successful play, look for a formula to explain the positive audience reaction to the play, then produce an achingly similar play one notch bigger and bolder. They try to turn it up to eleven... Although, one could easily make the case now that Broadway isn't as interested in new work as it is in adapting from different mediums. BUT, this is not the place for that rant, this is my discussion of Mr. Brook's book.

I agreed with nearly everything that Mr. Brook said about deadly theatre, including his distaste for it. I found it interesting Mr. Brook noted the ease with which Shakespeare is transformed into Deadly theatre. I'm pretty sure we have all been privy to performances of Shakespeare which were droll and insipid.

Mr. Brook speaks of Holy theatre, and I feel as if he speaks of the theatre of ritual. I thought it was interesting he spoke of th etheatre that existed in and around World War 2 in Europe. HE spoke of Holy theatre being the theatre of the invisible made visible, and it seemed like he was speaking about escapism. But perhaps escapism with a point. Holy theatre is, perhaps, Good when it address a need of the population to have a place to escape to. To allow the audience/spectactors to have their hunger sated by this theatre. I have to admit, I was a little bit lost reading this particular chapter. He wants to extoll the virtue and the need of the Holy Theatre to present the invisible as visible.

In reading the chapter (chapbook) about the Rough Theatre, Brook's notions on the Holy Theatre seem to come out a little. While the Rough Theatre is a theatre for the populace, for the working stiff, for the common man, it is the diametric opposite of the Holy Theatre. Or so he says. I'm not sure I find there is such a clear distinction between the two.

Going on the Rough Theatre, Mr. Brook says, "This is the theatre of noise, and the theatre of noise is the theatre of applause." It is the theatre of fun, of overt comedy, and yet of social change and anger. Of public derision and satire. In it's best sense, Broadway fulfills the notion of the Rough Theatre. BUT, as Mr. Brook aptly states, comedy is like fruit. The requisite ingredient for great fruit and great comedy is freshness. The continued injection of new material, of new actors, of NEW. Were I to pick a theatre labeled by Mr. Brook to lay claim as my own, it would be the Rough Theatre. I love comedy, I love laughing, and I love hearing people laugh, and while it may be selfish, I especially love when I can hear someone laugh at something I can up with. I like Musicals. I think musicals are, perhaps, the most affective art form there is. I believe the combination of compelling characters, stories, and live music is nigh-on-unbeatable, and it is one art form that drives me forward. My most favored theatrical memories are the musicals I have worked on, principally "Tidak Bisa". More on this in future posts.

The final elemental form of theatre discussed by Mr. Brook is the Immediate Theatre, which seems to be the style of theatre he most values, hence it's placement at the pinnacle of the book. This section is devoted to Mr. Brook speaking about the ideas he has to fill his own "Empty Space" of theatre. But, in a manner which I applaud and feel awed at, Mr. Brook acknowledges the work as not a formula for theatre, but an exploration of what theatre means to him individually. It would seem the book was written for Mr. Brook by Mr. Brook, but is of such worth to the rest of us, we should read it (and we should).

But in the end, I feel the book talks about the nature of theatre to both lend itself to classification, and also to resist being pigeonholed. Theater blends and merges amongst itself, for, as Mr. Brook says, "The one thing that distinguishes the theatre from all the other arts is that it has no permanence." This lack of stability (perhaps not the right word) allows for the fluid transition of theatre about the genres and, in the case of Mr. Brook, the classifications he came up with. I believe it is possible for a piece of Rough Theatre to also be Immediate, and to coalesce into Deadly. I think the true question is whether theatre that is "Deadly" can be saved and placed back into the other categories, and placed there in a positive sense.

There's a lot to think about in this book, including the notion espoused at the tail end of the book that, as the words were written, they were already moving into the past, and therefore, not quite relevant to Theater any longer.

All in all, a great book that made me think and consider the nature and theory of Theater.

Play well kids.