Selected Shorts (and a touch of fandom)
I went to see Selected Shorts with RSL the other night. Thought I'd share a bit about it ...
First things first, I did not hang out by the stage door and try to kidnap meet him. So I have no pics, or stories about how he smiled at me and I cried. Sorry :(
Instead, I have this:
This is what the stage looked like when we went in. The theme of the night was The Twilight Zone, and they began the program with a bunch of clips from the TV show -- They way they edited it was actually pretty cool and funny.
Appropriately enough, RSL wandered out while the Twilight Zone theme music played, and he watched as the screen was slooowly raised to reveal the full stage. Then he looked at the audience with his "WTF?" face. (I trust you can picture that.)
The readings
RSL hosted and read TWO of the five stories, so he was pretty busy. Despite the theme, only three stories actually had anything to do with The Twilight Zone -- meaning they were each the basis for an episode. They were all episodes I've never seen: "Four O'Clock," "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross," and "Perchance to Dream."
Zachary Quinto read "Four O'Clock," and I think that explains the large contingent of teenage girls in the audience -- which was not the case when I saw Selected Shorts last year. He was pretty good -- he stumbled over a couple lines and went "out of character" in those moments. My friend had seen him in The Glass Menagerie, and said he was amazing. I think reading a short story to an audience is a distinct skill.
RSL read "The Self-Improvement ...." It was a loooong short story, with a lot of characters -- from an elderly man to teenage kids. So he did a lot of vocal changes. You can tell he's been doing this for a long time. He looked up from the pages often, without seeming to get lost. And if he did skip or misspeak a line you wouldn't know. He also read a short story called "Head Over Knees," by Eric Schlich (no idea). It apparently won some Selected Shorts award this year. I'm not sure why. It was fine. But it was so short, I'm not sure where the "story" was. It was basically a few paragraphs of musings from some guy's head. They were interesting, if morbid, musings -- about the death, by CO poisoning, of an entire family he vaguely knew from his neighborhood. But I'm not sure what the point was.
Really Important, Deep Stuff
RSL was more dressed up than the last time I saw Selected Shorts -- he wore a full suit and tie. He was also thinner, and his hair was longer (rawr!). I mean, long to the degree that it was curling up at the ends and sticking out at interesting angles. That's not everyone's cuppa, but I like :) He also wore his glasses, which was different from last time. So basically, he looked like Wilson with rebellious hair and nearsightedness.
My friend and I had been sitting in the last row because we got tickets at the last minute. But then two women came up to us and asked to trade seats because one of them had a bad cough and wanted to be able to duck out quickly if necessary. Sooo, we ended up in the fourth row center, where I had a clear view of cheekbones and dimples :)
When he came out, a girl behind me (who apparently had no idea who Rod Serling was, and had come for the Quinto) said, "Oh, it's Wilson!"
RSL was his usual self. After ZQ read, RSL hugged him then told the audience, "He makes it seem so easy ... I hate him."
When he read and basically had to introduce himself, he mentioned how hard it is for an actor to humbly introduce other actors while really yearning to bask in the spotlight. Stuff like that :)
ETA: Oh, yeah -- He has to be the most fidgety person I've ever seen. When he was introducing rather than reading, he was constantly shifting his weight, putting his hands in his pockets/taking them out, running his hands through his hair, adjusting his glasses. Never still for a moment. I don't know if it's nerves, or a trait. Probably both.
A Side Story
At one of the centers where I teach, there is one other teacher who I just don't like. She's always so negative, and whining about how the other people at the center (and across the globe) don't appreciate her, work against her, blah-blah-blah. So I saw her the next morning, and I mentioned that I'd seen Selected Shorts the night before. (She used to be a Broadway stage manager, so she's very interested in these types of things.) She asked me who'd read and our conversation went like this (enhanced with my thoughts):
Me: Robert Sean Leonard.
Her: Ugh.
Me: WTF? What?
Her: Oh, he's really good. But he always reminds me of his character on House. I hated Wilson.
Me: Bitch, what? Oh, really? I liked him.
Her: He was such a jerk. Trust me. I've probably seen every episode twice.
Me: Only twice? Oh, he could be a jerk. But that's partly why I liked him. Everyone on that show was a jerk sometimes.
Her: Well, House was supposed to be a jerk. But he wasn't. He was just honest. And funny.
Me: Do you publish stories on FF.net? Yeah, I see it differently. But they're fictional characters. We all see them differently. *Shakes with the effort of not defending said fictional character and revealing myself as insane fangirl*
Her: Well, I really don't see what there was to like about Wilson.
Me: *already walking away* I have to go.
What does it say about my mental health that I like her even less now?
:D
First things first, I did not hang out by the stage door and try to kidnap meet him. So I have no pics, or stories about how he smiled at me and I cried. Sorry :(
Instead, I have this:
This is what the stage looked like when we went in. The theme of the night was The Twilight Zone, and they began the program with a bunch of clips from the TV show -- They way they edited it was actually pretty cool and funny.
Appropriately enough, RSL wandered out while the Twilight Zone theme music played, and he watched as the screen was slooowly raised to reveal the full stage. Then he looked at the audience with his "WTF?" face. (I trust you can picture that.)
The readings
RSL hosted and read TWO of the five stories, so he was pretty busy. Despite the theme, only three stories actually had anything to do with The Twilight Zone -- meaning they were each the basis for an episode. They were all episodes I've never seen: "Four O'Clock," "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross," and "Perchance to Dream."
Zachary Quinto read "Four O'Clock," and I think that explains the large contingent of teenage girls in the audience -- which was not the case when I saw Selected Shorts last year. He was pretty good -- he stumbled over a couple lines and went "out of character" in those moments. My friend had seen him in The Glass Menagerie, and said he was amazing. I think reading a short story to an audience is a distinct skill.
RSL read "The Self-Improvement ...." It was a loooong short story, with a lot of characters -- from an elderly man to teenage kids. So he did a lot of vocal changes. You can tell he's been doing this for a long time. He looked up from the pages often, without seeming to get lost. And if he did skip or misspeak a line you wouldn't know. He also read a short story called "Head Over Knees," by Eric Schlich (no idea). It apparently won some Selected Shorts award this year. I'm not sure why. It was fine. But it was so short, I'm not sure where the "story" was. It was basically a few paragraphs of musings from some guy's head. They were interesting, if morbid, musings -- about the death, by CO poisoning, of an entire family he vaguely knew from his neighborhood. But I'm not sure what the point was.
Really Important, Deep Stuff
RSL was more dressed up than the last time I saw Selected Shorts -- he wore a full suit and tie. He was also thinner, and his hair was longer (rawr!). I mean, long to the degree that it was curling up at the ends and sticking out at interesting angles. That's not everyone's cuppa, but I like :) He also wore his glasses, which was different from last time. So basically, he looked like Wilson with rebellious hair and nearsightedness.
My friend and I had been sitting in the last row because we got tickets at the last minute. But then two women came up to us and asked to trade seats because one of them had a bad cough and wanted to be able to duck out quickly if necessary. Sooo, we ended up in the fourth row center, where I had a clear view of cheekbones and dimples :)
When he came out, a girl behind me (who apparently had no idea who Rod Serling was, and had come for the Quinto) said, "Oh, it's Wilson!"
RSL was his usual self. After ZQ read, RSL hugged him then told the audience, "He makes it seem so easy ... I hate him."
When he read and basically had to introduce himself, he mentioned how hard it is for an actor to humbly introduce other actors while really yearning to bask in the spotlight. Stuff like that :)
ETA: Oh, yeah -- He has to be the most fidgety person I've ever seen. When he was introducing rather than reading, he was constantly shifting his weight, putting his hands in his pockets/taking them out, running his hands through his hair, adjusting his glasses. Never still for a moment. I don't know if it's nerves, or a trait. Probably both.
A Side Story
At one of the centers where I teach, there is one other teacher who I just don't like. She's always so negative, and whining about how the other people at the center (and across the globe) don't appreciate her, work against her, blah-blah-blah. So I saw her the next morning, and I mentioned that I'd seen Selected Shorts the night before. (She used to be a Broadway stage manager, so she's very interested in these types of things.) She asked me who'd read and our conversation went like this (enhanced with my thoughts):
Me: Robert Sean Leonard.
Her: Ugh.
Me: WTF? What?
Her: Oh, he's really good. But he always reminds me of his character on House. I hated Wilson.
Me: Bitch, what? Oh, really? I liked him.
Her: He was such a jerk. Trust me. I've probably seen every episode twice.
Me: Only twice? Oh, he could be a jerk. But that's partly why I liked him. Everyone on that show was a jerk sometimes.
Her: Well, House was supposed to be a jerk. But he wasn't. He was just honest. And funny.
Me: Do you publish stories on FF.net? Yeah, I see it differently. But they're fictional characters. We all see them differently. *Shakes with the effort of not defending said fictional character and revealing myself as insane fangirl*
Her: Well, I really don't see what there was to like about Wilson.
Me: *already walking away* I have to go.
What does it say about my mental health that I like her even less now?
:D