a stranger in this town
well i'm back from Chicago. what a great weekend. allow me to gush about the show for a second before i make any major philosophical observations.
i love Far Away. i think it's amazing how one 50-minute play can make such a bold statement in such a creative way. and actually seeing the show made me understand it even better.
brief synopsis:
in Part One, we see 10-year-old Joan in the drawing room of her Aunt Harper's farmhouse. Joan has witnessed her uncle beating people with a shovel in their backyard, and she is asking her aunt about what she has seen. although Harper does her best to explain it all away, she cannot lie to Joan:
"You've found out something secret. You know that, don't you? . . . Something you shouldn't know . . . Something you must never talk about. Because if you do you could put people's lives in danger."
Part Two. it's several years later. Joan is grown, and she is working in a millinery shop alongside Todd, a dashing young man. in several very short scenes, we see the two chat, laugh, argue, and fall in love, as they construct brightly decorated and ridiculously ornate hats. we soon learn that these hats are to be judged at the end of the week, when a group of prisoners will model the hats before being executed.
Stage Directions: A procession of ragged, beaten, chained prisoners, each wearing a hat, on their way to execution. The finished hats are even more enormous and preposterous than in the previous scene.
Part Three. it's a few years later, and the WHOLE WORLD is at war. and not just countries. entire species. elements of nature. Joan and Todd are married, but Joan has gone off to fight. yet still she yearns for the comfort of home and the people she loves, so she has deserted and retreated back to her aunt's farmhouse. Todd has come to find her. throughout the scene, he and Harper discuss what is going on in the world:
TODD
Do we include mallards in this?
HARPER
Mallards are not a good waterbird. They commit rape, and they're on the side of the elephants and the Koreans. But crocodiles are always in the wrong.
nothing is safe. alliances are formed and broken, and nobody knows how or when. eventually Joan wakes up and tells as much as she can of her voyage home. (i've made the last part of the monologue bold, because i think it's important. that wasn't Caryl Churchill's doing. it's mine.):
"Of course birds saw me, everyone saw me walking along but nobody knew why, I could have been on a mission, everyone's moving about and no one knows why, and in fact I killed two cats and a child under five so it wasn't that different from a mission, and I don't see why I can't have one day and then go back, I'll go on to the end after this. It wasn't so much the birds I was frightened of, it was the weather, the weather here's on the side of the Japanese. There were thunderstorms all through the mountains, I went through towns I hadn't been before. The rats are bleeding out of their mouths and ears, which is good, and so were the girls by the side of the road. It was tiring there because everything's been recruited, there were piles of bodies and if you stopped to find out there was one killed by coffee or one killed by pins, they were killed by heroin, petrol, chainsaws, hairspray, bleach, foxgloves, the smell of smoke was where we were burning the grass that wouldn't serve. The Bolivians are working with gravity, that's a secret so as not to spread alarm. But we're getting further with noise and there's thousands dead of light in Madagascar. Who's going to mobilise darkness and silence? that's what I wondered in the night. By the third day I could hardly walk but I got down to the river. There was a camp of Chilean soldiers upstream but they hadn't seen me and fourteen black and white cows downstream having a drink so I knew I'd have to go straight across. But I didn't know whose side the river was on, it might help me swim or it might drown me. In the middle the current was running much faster, the water was brown, I didn't know if that meant anything. I stood on the bank a long time. But I knew it was my only way of getting here so at last I put one foot in the river. It was very cold but so far that was all. When you've just stepped in you can't tell what's going to happen. The water laps round your ankles in any case."
Karen Aldridge's delivery of that final monologue is breathtaking. i would venture to say that anyone who has already seen and expressed disapproval of this play might change their opinion a little bit if they were to witness her performance of this monologue. she made this seemingly complex and strange poetry into something quite coherent, thought-provoking, and beautiful.
overall i thought the production was pretty good, though there were some strange choices. two giant red elevator doors stood upstage of an otherwise barren set during the parade of prisoners, and i'm not quite sure why they were there. and at the end of the play, Joan stepped back into this blue-walled chamber, where rain poured down on her as she delivered the last line. but nothing really took me out of the play.
i'll stop right there, because i could go on and on and on, but it won't mean anything to anyone who hasn't seen the play. so for those of you who want to know more about the production, deeder25, e-mail me.
being in Chicago was very strange and very relaxing. strange, because it felt like i had never left the place. i knew where everything was. i knew where i wanted to go. i didn't feel like a visitor at all. relaxing, because i didn't have to worry about anything. i ate out for all of my meals, i slept in just about everyday, i didn't do any work for the theatre company, and i sure as hell didn't worry about my job.
i got to spend a LOT of time with my friend Marsha. a lot of real quality time, that is. of course we made a trip to my favorite brunch place EVER, The Bongo Room, because Marsha had NEVER been there. but i had more fun doing some of the less expensive things, like sitting in her apartment and listening to the Avenue Q soundtrack, discussing the production of Far Away, discussing some ideas for the play i'm hoping to direct next spring, and talking about lots of personal friend-type stuff that i don't think i've ever talked about with Marsha before. it was just what i needed.
i also got to hang out with my former co-workers and my friends Jen, Kris, Ryan, and Julienne. i missed out on seeing a few others, but there's only so much one can pack into a relaxing weekend.
sometimes i feel like i didn't give Chicago enough of a chance, because i met and started to get to know all the really cool people RIGHT before i moved out to philly. do you ever wish you could just package up the people who make you feel really good and bring them with you everywhere you go? well that's how i feel about some of my Chicago friends. but i suspect i'll still be a frequent visitor to the Windy City. i'm even considering applying for grad school there. it's a great city. i just needed to get away from it for a while.
in fact, spending the weekend out there has restored my faith in humanity. well, maybe not quite. but it did allow me to rest up and re-energize, so that i can plunge into all this crazy theatre company stuff i'm undertaking. which is definitely good.
so overall i give this past weekend an A. good job, Chicago. you'll have the chance to raise that grade to an A+ when i come back out to visit in the summer.
i love Far Away. i think it's amazing how one 50-minute play can make such a bold statement in such a creative way. and actually seeing the show made me understand it even better.
brief synopsis:
in Part One, we see 10-year-old Joan in the drawing room of her Aunt Harper's farmhouse. Joan has witnessed her uncle beating people with a shovel in their backyard, and she is asking her aunt about what she has seen. although Harper does her best to explain it all away, she cannot lie to Joan:
"You've found out something secret. You know that, don't you? . . . Something you shouldn't know . . . Something you must never talk about. Because if you do you could put people's lives in danger."
Part Two. it's several years later. Joan is grown, and she is working in a millinery shop alongside Todd, a dashing young man. in several very short scenes, we see the two chat, laugh, argue, and fall in love, as they construct brightly decorated and ridiculously ornate hats. we soon learn that these hats are to be judged at the end of the week, when a group of prisoners will model the hats before being executed.
Stage Directions: A procession of ragged, beaten, chained prisoners, each wearing a hat, on their way to execution. The finished hats are even more enormous and preposterous than in the previous scene.
Part Three. it's a few years later, and the WHOLE WORLD is at war. and not just countries. entire species. elements of nature. Joan and Todd are married, but Joan has gone off to fight. yet still she yearns for the comfort of home and the people she loves, so she has deserted and retreated back to her aunt's farmhouse. Todd has come to find her. throughout the scene, he and Harper discuss what is going on in the world:
TODD
Do we include mallards in this?
HARPER
Mallards are not a good waterbird. They commit rape, and they're on the side of the elephants and the Koreans. But crocodiles are always in the wrong.
nothing is safe. alliances are formed and broken, and nobody knows how or when. eventually Joan wakes up and tells as much as she can of her voyage home. (i've made the last part of the monologue bold, because i think it's important. that wasn't Caryl Churchill's doing. it's mine.):
"Of course birds saw me, everyone saw me walking along but nobody knew why, I could have been on a mission, everyone's moving about and no one knows why, and in fact I killed two cats and a child under five so it wasn't that different from a mission, and I don't see why I can't have one day and then go back, I'll go on to the end after this. It wasn't so much the birds I was frightened of, it was the weather, the weather here's on the side of the Japanese. There were thunderstorms all through the mountains, I went through towns I hadn't been before. The rats are bleeding out of their mouths and ears, which is good, and so were the girls by the side of the road. It was tiring there because everything's been recruited, there were piles of bodies and if you stopped to find out there was one killed by coffee or one killed by pins, they were killed by heroin, petrol, chainsaws, hairspray, bleach, foxgloves, the smell of smoke was where we were burning the grass that wouldn't serve. The Bolivians are working with gravity, that's a secret so as not to spread alarm. But we're getting further with noise and there's thousands dead of light in Madagascar. Who's going to mobilise darkness and silence? that's what I wondered in the night. By the third day I could hardly walk but I got down to the river. There was a camp of Chilean soldiers upstream but they hadn't seen me and fourteen black and white cows downstream having a drink so I knew I'd have to go straight across. But I didn't know whose side the river was on, it might help me swim or it might drown me. In the middle the current was running much faster, the water was brown, I didn't know if that meant anything. I stood on the bank a long time. But I knew it was my only way of getting here so at last I put one foot in the river. It was very cold but so far that was all. When you've just stepped in you can't tell what's going to happen. The water laps round your ankles in any case."
Karen Aldridge's delivery of that final monologue is breathtaking. i would venture to say that anyone who has already seen and expressed disapproval of this play might change their opinion a little bit if they were to witness her performance of this monologue. she made this seemingly complex and strange poetry into something quite coherent, thought-provoking, and beautiful.
overall i thought the production was pretty good, though there were some strange choices. two giant red elevator doors stood upstage of an otherwise barren set during the parade of prisoners, and i'm not quite sure why they were there. and at the end of the play, Joan stepped back into this blue-walled chamber, where rain poured down on her as she delivered the last line. but nothing really took me out of the play.
i'll stop right there, because i could go on and on and on, but it won't mean anything to anyone who hasn't seen the play. so for those of you who want to know more about the production, deeder25, e-mail me.
being in Chicago was very strange and very relaxing. strange, because it felt like i had never left the place. i knew where everything was. i knew where i wanted to go. i didn't feel like a visitor at all. relaxing, because i didn't have to worry about anything. i ate out for all of my meals, i slept in just about everyday, i didn't do any work for the theatre company, and i sure as hell didn't worry about my job.
i got to spend a LOT of time with my friend Marsha. a lot of real quality time, that is. of course we made a trip to my favorite brunch place EVER, The Bongo Room, because Marsha had NEVER been there. but i had more fun doing some of the less expensive things, like sitting in her apartment and listening to the Avenue Q soundtrack, discussing the production of Far Away, discussing some ideas for the play i'm hoping to direct next spring, and talking about lots of personal friend-type stuff that i don't think i've ever talked about with Marsha before. it was just what i needed.
i also got to hang out with my former co-workers and my friends Jen, Kris, Ryan, and Julienne. i missed out on seeing a few others, but there's only so much one can pack into a relaxing weekend.
sometimes i feel like i didn't give Chicago enough of a chance, because i met and started to get to know all the really cool people RIGHT before i moved out to philly. do you ever wish you could just package up the people who make you feel really good and bring them with you everywhere you go? well that's how i feel about some of my Chicago friends. but i suspect i'll still be a frequent visitor to the Windy City. i'm even considering applying for grad school there. it's a great city. i just needed to get away from it for a while.
in fact, spending the weekend out there has restored my faith in humanity. well, maybe not quite. but it did allow me to rest up and re-energize, so that i can plunge into all this crazy theatre company stuff i'm undertaking. which is definitely good.
so overall i give this past weekend an A. good job, Chicago. you'll have the chance to raise that grade to an A+ when i come back out to visit in the summer.