stage fright vs. panic attacks

I learned quite a bit Sunday, thanks to the Dramatists Guild panel in Philadelphia, about electronic and copyright issues for playwrights. And I did pretty well, considering this was my first panel discussion.

It helped that I've told the story of The Lawsuit a million times, but even so it surprised me to hear the gasps from the small but attentive audience when I mentioned that it cost my production partner over $300K to pay for the lawsuit.

What really surprised me though was how comfortable I felt at the table facing the audience. Considering that I have occasional panic attacks (although not nearly as often since I left my last job) and considering that the number one fear most people report having is public speaking - I would have thought that if I would have a panic anywhere it would be there.

I have taught computer classes both in corporate settings and colleges, and this was like a class in many respects, so I guess that helped. It also probably helped that my panic attacks have never been as extreme as Paul Vandevelder describes in Sunday's New York Times.  I've never taken medication for it, just suffered through it, but then again, my panic symptoms have never been as extreme as Vandevelder's, with actual sweating or heart-racing. Mine have always remained completely in my head, so although I am afraid I'm going to faint, I don't actually faint. I've had panic attacks right in the middle of talking to people and they had no idea I was having one.

Vandevelder even suggests that Heath Ledger died due to over-medicating himself for anxiety. Which is all the more reason to avoid drugs. But Vandevelder does a good deed here by publicizing the work of Claire Weekes, who is all about cognitive therapy as opposed to drugs.

what's with all the nudity?

The second play of the week we did was not about nudity like the first one was, but we got into it anyway. I learned so much about the world of men's locker rooms!

Don't Feed the Trolls - SkepchickCON/CONvergence panel

This is a very important issue dealt with at the Skepchick conference, the phenomenon of targeting women bloggers with threats of rape and violence.

It happened to me - not in comments but through search string text. Which is so inconvenient - trying to explain what search string text is and how you can read it to most people is like trying to explain what an obscene phone call is (which is very much what it is like)  to someone from the 17th century.

For more information about what happened to me, check out: Off-Off Broadway: Adventures with Creeps and Time to End Harassment.

One of the points made by the panel is that you should not remain silent about Internet harassment, even though people will tell you "don't let it bother you."

The goal of the troll is to shut you up. The search string harasser did not stop the harassment for over half a year until I mentioned him by name on my blog - and the name of one of his friends who also participated in the harassment.

Obviously I blog on a daily basis, and I talk about lots of things. Usually politics and theatre, but occasionally I talk about personal stuff. Normally I don't name names because who really cares? But I certainly have a right to talk about something that happened to me, and I even have the right to name names, if I so desire.

The reason I ended up being harassed by the text string messages is actually a long saga -  a few years ago I had a bad experience with a couple of actors who I was paying to perform in a show of mine. I felt horribly betrayed - they seemed to target me, in spite of my manifest good will towards them, for no other reason than it amused them to upset me, even in spite of the possible harm it would have done to the show that they themselves were performing in. I got a complaint from the stage manager that they were being abusive to the stage crew, but that was just one of the ways they chose to express their contempt for me.

After the show ended, I told each of them in individual emails why I was upset with them, and their response was to ignore me.  I concluded that they were awful people and I said so on my blog - I called them "assholes" - but I never mentioned them by name. Because other than me wanting them to know how I felt about them - I knew at least one of them was monitoring my blog - who really cares?

I concluded they were awful people - but even I didn't realize how awful. I wanted them to read what I thought about them because I wanted to shame them for their nasty and unprofessional behavior - but the problem is that you simply cannot shame people who possess no sense of shame.

 I only discovered in the last year or so that they used my online references to them (and I never mentioned their names) as a justification to defame me at a theatre organization and to many individuals. Including, apparently, the people responsible for the text string harassment.

Now this is basically my business, and not of a general interest, especially since I decided not to pursue legal recourse against them. Although if I ever get irrefutable evidence of their defamatory activities I will revisit that decision.

But what is most interesting on a social level in the context of this Skepchick panel discussion is how viciously misogynistic many of the text string messages were. These messages weren't from MRA (men's rights activists) types. These were men who claimed to be liberals and who partnered with women on creative projects. So it doesn't surprise me at all that Rebecca Watson and other women writing about controversial subjects (atheism, feminism) online receive threats of rape and murder. If even alleged liberal men can send text string messages like the ones I received, we certainly can't expect better from professional misogynists.

creepy old man plays

I thought I could escape creepy old man plays when I stopped running NYCPlaywrights as an organization open to anybody. I ran it for years and the percentage of the membership that was old retired men kept creeping up, until eventually about 40% of the playwright membership was men over 60. Which meant that we were inundated with creepy old man plays.

Creepy old man plays have regressive attitudes about the world, because most people's understanding of the way things work, especially the social hierarchy, tends to stop evolving when they get into middle age - especially if they were at the top of the social hierarchy as these (inevitably straight and white) men were.

Which means that in creepy old man plays it's a huge problem that there are now sexual harassment laws in the workplace. According to creepy old man plays, the office environment was just swell for everybody, until these horrible feminists came in and ruined it for everybody.

Also they like to write plays in which young women are very much attracted to old men - not for their money, of course, but just for the splendiferousness of being an old man. I'll never forget one play, where the 60-something man (the hero of the play of course) was interested in a 20-something woman, and his uptight buddies were telling him to go retire to Florida with "a 50-year-old widow." Because in the minds of creepy old men, a man dating a woman only ten years younger than himself is a huge disappointment. And also note that a 50-year-old widow is seen as somebody who is willing to join a retired man in his retirement. As if she doesn't have her own job and her own 401K to think about.

Jesus I hate creepy old men.

They were a huge reason for why I changed things for NYCPlaywrights. And now that I'm running the NYCPlaywrights Play of the Week it's happening again. I stupidly suggested on the POTW call for scripts that the plays submitted don't necessarily have to be polished work but could be works-in-progress. Which means I have to wade through piles of absolute shit. And most of it from men, because men have a much higher opinion of themselves and their work than women do, and so they have no shame in sending off any crappy first draft they've just written.

Although women write bad plays too - but they're just less confident in their first drafts than men are.

But also, the idea that most people will learn from readings of their plays, I discovered long ago, is a joke. For most people the first draft IS the play, and they are not interested in critiques in order to help improve the work - they want you to tell them how great it is.

I only need to find four plays of the usual 50+ submissions for the Play of the Week that I can live with. And I can do it. The plays that are selected are rarely exactly good, but they at least don't make me want to puke.

But reading a pile of shitty plays month after month to get to those four non-pukey plays is starting to destroy my soul and I will have to stop. The Play of the Month project is enough to deal with. And one of the advantages of the Play of the MONTH is that there is usually a theme required of the submissions ("the supernatural", "civil rights" etc.) which makes it difficult, although not, alas, impossible for creepy old men to get in their usual favorite issues in.

Unless you have balls, you are worthless

Holy hopping Jesus on a pogo stick.

It's bad enough that Jon Stewart continues to use the word "balls" to mean courage, but when an alleged feminist uses it, it's completely insane.

That's like a Zionist complimenting another Jew for her good Christian values.

VIDA: Women in Literary Arts posted a link on Facebook to this blog post, entitled "When You Are Silent, You Are Worthless. She writes:

In short, the books are being marketed as women’s literature (or better known as “chick lit,” a term that has always driven me up the wall). So, like the ballsy woman she is, Belica took pen to paper and wrote an article about her experience and her personal opinions of the books...

That's right, that is NOT a typo. She complains about the term "chick lit" and in THE VERY NEXT SENTENCE she compliments a woman by calling her "ballsy."

FOLLOW UP: here is her response:

Yes, I did and I will continue to call anyone I deem “ballsy” that regardless of gender. Just as I will call anyone “bitchy” when they are being that as well.
I do not define “ballsy” by gender and if you have a problem with that, take it up with Merriam-Webster.

So clearly if the culture codifies sexism in the language we are all utterly HELPLESS - if it's in the dictionary then we are compelled to continue to use the sexist-based term!

I mean, there is no more obvious bed-rock proof of millenia of misogyny than the fact that male genitalia is considered the appropriate word for courage, and female genitalia ("pussy") is considered the appropriate word for cowardace. What would it take to get through to her the fundamental, unavoidable sexism of the term "ballsy"? Do Noah Webster and George and Charles Merriam have to come back from the dead to explain it?

Obviously she would have no problem using the phrase "Jew down" to mean drive a hard bargain, either, because hey it's in the dictionary! Of course we have to continue to spread anti-Semitism if it's in the dictionary!

But that still begs the question - if you can justify the use of the word "ballsy" to praise a woman for her courage, on what grounds do you dare to complain about the use of the term "chick lit"? The logical dissonance is utterly mind-blowing.

And I did not choose the title of this blog post randomly - this is the exact meaning of what she is saying. Here's how it works: she says "when you are silent, you are worthless" - and so the woman she's writing about is not silent. Why does she have the power to speak up? She's ballsy. She has balls. Because having balls makes you courageous - LIKE A MAN.

Various types of dread

The web site Engrish.com is second only to Damn You Autocorrect for reliably making me laugh until I cry whenever I visit. The happy accidents of bad translation just make me LOL, whether people-based or computer algorithm-based.

And speaking of DYA...

Weeds Marathon

As I have done in late June- early July every year for the past seven years, I had a Weeds Marathon last weekend - I downloaded the entire season and watched the whole thing in one shot... well this year I watched the whole season in two shots.

Except for Monk and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Weeds is the only TV series I've gotten interested in over the past decade.

If I may use a drug analogy, Weeds was once a supreme high but after awhile the effects wore off and it no longer delivered quite the same buzz. But you keep trying anyway, hoping to recapture that feeling.  Unlike actual drugs in which you become acclimated to the psycho-physiological effects, the problem with Weeds is that series creator Jenji Kohan has run out of ideas.

Really, once Nancy Botwin leaves the Agrestic community after the third season, the quality dropped off - the entire suburban mom breaking the law concept was destroyed. And they had an excellent reason to lose the Doug Wilson character played by Kevin Nealon at that point, and yet they did not. I  never understood why Kevin Nealon has had a career. He's incredibly unattractive, but even more so, he seems slow and oafish. And the Doug Wilson character is without redeeming value - and predictably so. You always know what his character will do in any given scene - the jerkiest, most self-centered thing. I fast forward through Doug Wilson scenes as much as possible.

A huge general problem with the series is that everybody is basically corrupt and nobody cares that much about anything except for short-term pleasure and gain. The Doug Wilson character leads the pack on this, but they're all basically the same. And while there's a certain funky insouciance in a world where the characters are cool about everything and just go with the flow, it gets boring very quickly. If nobody really cares about anything, and everybody is corrupt, then what's the point?

Occasionally they'll give a character an attack of conscience and then things do become interesting. Nancy had an attack of conscience during the seasons where she was involved with a Mexican drug kingpin -  it turns out that they were not only dealing drugs, they were trafficking underaged girls. And that made Nancy cooperate with the police and that put the show on track for two seasons - it still wasn't as good as the first three years, but it was still addicting.

The Andy Botwin character (played by Justin Kirk) who is usually too flaky to take a stand about anything, also occasionally has an attack of conscience and at those times his character becomes interesting again.

And then the Silas character has attacks of conscience. Although this past season, 7, was by far the weakest one in part because Silas was jerked around as needed by the plot. The actor who plays him (Hunter Parrish) should be paid extra for trying to make sense of the empty, repetitive dialog he's given.

Another huge problem is that Weeds is suffering to a certain extent from the Smurfette principle, which is especially disappointing coming from a show created by a woman. But the show is all about Nancy Botwin, her two sons and her brother-in-law (oh yes and Doug Wilson, but who really cares about him?) The fact that none of the men is ever in a relationship that lasts more than a couple of months is truly disturbing. This used to be justified somewhat because they were on the run, but they were in Denmark for three years and only Shane appears to have had a substantial relationship with someone during that time.

There seems to be some effort to rehabilitate the Shane character (Alexander Gould), who basically became a psycho at the end of season 5. Giving him a relationship in Denmark was, I guess, phase one, and then having him join the police academy at the end of season seven is phase two. Because psychos might be interesting as adversaries, but they're not too interesting as one of the good guys.

One thing I have to say about Mary Louise Parker - she must be bionic. She appears not to have aged at all in seven years of Weeds. She's forty-seven years old - I kid you not - and looks like her early 30s. To get some sense of how most people in their 40s age, check out episodes of the Daily Show from 2005 and compare Jon Stewart then and now. That's not a knock against Stewart - I'm holding him up as an example of normal aging.

According to Wikipedia, the next season, 8, will be the last one.

Heading for Philly

Tom Tirney is a former member of NYCPlaywrights, and now the President of the Board of the Philadelphia Dramatists Center, as well as the Philadelphia regional representative of the Dramatists Guild. He invited me to speak in Philly this Sunday about The Strange Case of Edward Einhorn vs. Mergatroyd Productions. More about the event here.

Ralph Sevush, the president of the Dramatists Guild will also be there, which is great - he's a very good speaker. I was very impressed by his panel discussions at last years Dramatists Guild convention. And of course he took the stand on our behalf during the TAM LIN trial.

As any of my friends or family members can tell you, getting me to talk about this case isn't a problem - it's getting me to shut up about it.

But kidding aside, I think our case was much more important than many people realize. We got a federal judge to define a registration-worthy director's copyright (my bold emphasis):

The claimed ("blocking and choreography" script) consisted of movements of actors and positioning of actors. There is a very lively question, I suppose, as to whether that is an appropriate subject of the copyright as to which I express no opinion. If it is, however, the deposit copy certainly didn't cover it because it is impossible to discern with precision from the deposit copy just exactly what the movements were and what the positioning was.

The most important parts are "with precision"and "exactly what the movements were and what the positioning was" - directors typically write their directions down - if at all - in the margins of the script and the stage managers will also take notes. Einhorn subpoenaed our stage manager from TAM LIN and tried to claim that her notes could stand in for a copyrightable work. But even the best stage manager doesn't take notes that make it possible to "discern with precision exactly what the movements were and what the positioning was." The director, stage manager and the actors all work together to firm up the positioning and movements. The stage manager may write certain key bits of information down, but in practice what everybody does is eyeball it - if everybody agrees it looks right, it is right.

To document "with precision" the movements and positioning would be a huge, time-consuming pain in the ass.

And then of course there is the issue of how the work should be submitted to the US Copyright Office for registration. As I pointed out last summer, there's actually a good case to be made, based on a passage in the 1996 issue of Columbia Law and the Arts, that Edward Einhorn infringed my copyright:

Because the dramatist retains the sole right to make copies of the work under 17 U.S.C 106(1), and to distribute it under 17 U.S.C. 103, the director's act of copying the script and sending it to the Copyright Office is itself an act of infringement.

And in fact the registration that Einhorn submitted to the Copyright Office did not even have my name on it. My script, from which they removed my name, and on which Einhorn added some stage directions, was submitted to the Copyright Office as Einhorn's work - not even as a derivative work.

The Mantello case is often cited on the issue of a director's copyright, but if it was tried, I'm certain Mantello would have lost. Because as the Columbia Law and the Arts article points out, the theatre company sued by Mantello (aided and abetted by the Stage Directors and Choreographer's Society) was simply following standard procedure in using the Mantello-directed production's set of Terrence McNally's work:

Because it is rare that a dramatist will participate in rehearsals beyond the first production, the only insurance the dramatist has that the work will continue to be performed in accordance with her wishes, is to cause the script to be printed as performed. Indeed, it has hertofore been the custom to simply assume the New York production is one and the same with the play. For example, in the Love! Valour! Compassion! case, the playwright Terrence McNally included a preface in the Acting Version of the play, stating that the initial New York Production was "definitive." The author even told one reporter that it was his hope that regional productions would not stray too much from his intent, as reflected by the staging of the New York production.

Thus, the dramatist normally receives a copy of the stage manager's script upon the opening of the show. This is then incorporated in the script given to the publisher, which normally also becomes the licensing agent of the play for subsequent productions (other than first class productions, which only the dramatist can authorize)... Further, the script itself includes the following notice: 

All groups receiving permission to produce Love! Valour! Compassion! are required to (1) give credit to the Author as sole and exclusive Author of the Play in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play... and (2) to give the following acknowledgement on the title page of all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play: 'Originally produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club on November 1, 1994.

In the Love! Valour! Compassion! case, one of the Caldwell Theatre's major defenses is going to be that they relied heavily on the Acting Version in preparing their production. The accused theatre's development director, William McCarthy, has stated "[i]n our mind, we didn't do anything out of the ordinary that any regional theatre that's trying to mount a production in two and a half weeks doesn't: you refer to the script and to other information that you get from the producing entity and you use it. According to the artistic director, the script sent to him by the licensing agency included explicit stage directions which mirrored the Broadway production. McCarthy continued, "[w]e reviewed [SSDC's] list of complaints, and for the most part were able to relate them back to information contained in the script. Thus, Dramatists Play Service will no doubt have to be added as a necessary party to the lawsuit. In turn, Terrence McNally, who authorized the publication, will also be drawn into the suit.

McCarthy is also quoted in Playbill:

"The SSDC wants to make it sound like we admitted to using Mantello's stage directions. We did not, and there's nothing in the joint statement to that effect," said McCarthy. "It says certain elements of the New York production were created by Mantello. It does not say `stage directions.' The problem is Mantello was calling everything stage directions. As the joint statement says, none of the legal issues have been resolved. No precedent has been set by this case."

So what Jonathan Flagg and I did was actually bring the question up for a decision by a judge, unlike the Mantello case. But because nobody involved in our case is famous like Mantello and McNally (in spite of Edward Einhorn's views of his career) this has been largely ignored by the theatre world. But on a legal level, that doesn't matter - if another director were to pull a stunt like Einhorn did, you better believe that the playwright's lawyer will look up our case and use Judge Kaplan's words against the director.

So to sum up, there are three roadblocks on the path to a director's copyright:

1. The nuisance of having to write down with precision the movements and positioning. This would add a whole other level of administration to a stage production.
2. The traditional practice of recording a world premiere's set and general blocking for a play's publication has never been accepted as grounds for a director's copyright, Mantello's out-of-court settlement notwithstanding.
3. Although the Einhorns attempted to submit my play plus director's notes as an original work, in fact a stage director can never legally submit stage directions as a free-standing work - it will always be a derivative work, in a way that choreography (which the Einhorns tried to compare Edward's direction to) is not. The more accurate analogy, which the Dramatists Guild made, is the relationship of a conductor to a composer's work. Conductors do not copyright their conducting of a composer's work.

And of course there is the issue of any playwright and or producer being fool enough to let a director who is clearly recording his/her direction "with precision" to get away with it. You'd have to be an idiot to agree to such a thing.

Really, it's probably time I wrote a book about this.

Here's an article from Variety about the Mantello case, with the headline written in its inimitable style:


Helmers, scribes battle
To translate, "helmers" are directors and "scribes" are playwrights.

Discovering HAMLET

And speaking of HAMLET, this documentary of Kenneth Branagh being directed by Derek Jacobi (and narrated by Patrick Stewart) in HAMLET is great. This was pretty much my introduction to directing, in addition to being thrown into it thanks to the TAM LIN lawsuit. I have it on VHS video and so of course can't watch it any more - but here it is on Youtube - yay!

In defense of Act I Scene 1

I saw two very different productions of HAMLET in the last two weeks. Almost the only thing they both had in common was that they excised Act I Scene 1.

I object.

I have no problem with trimming the play. Everybody does it and with good reason. Avon Bill never used one word when he could use ten, and it's hard enough for modern audiences to interpret the language. And in spite of what some people would have you believe, it is not finally the language that is the most important aspect of Shakespeare's work, impressive though his language is - it's the plot and the emotions.

Here is the scene as written:

ACT I

         SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.

            FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO

        BERNARDO

            Who's there?

        FRANCISCO

            Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

        BERNARDO

            Long live the king!

        FRANCISCO

            Bernardo?

        BERNARDO

            He.

        FRANCISCO

            You come most carefully upon your hour.

        BERNARDO

            'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

        FRANCISCO

            For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
            And I am sick at heart.

        BERNARDO

            Have you had quiet guard?

        FRANCISCO

            Not a mouse stirring.

        BERNARDO

            Well, good night.
            If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
            The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

        FRANCISCO

            I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?

            Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

        HORATIO

            Friends to this ground.

        MARCELLUS

            And liegemen to the Dane.

        FRANCISCO

            Give you good night.

        MARCELLUS

            O, farewell, honest soldier:
            Who hath relieved you?

        FRANCISCO

            Bernardo has my place.
            Give you good night.

            Exit

        MARCELLUS

            Holla! Bernardo!

        BERNARDO

            Say, What, is Horatio there?

        HORATIO

            A piece of him.

        BERNARDO

            Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.

        MARCELLUS

            What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?

        BERNARDO

            I have seen nothing.

        MARCELLUS

            Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
            And will not let belief take hold of him
            Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us:
            Therefore I have entreated him along
            With us to watch the minutes of this night;
            That if again this apparition come,
            He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

        HORATIO

            Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.

        BERNARDO

            Sit down awhile;
            And let us once again assail your ears,
            That are so fortified against our story
            What we have two nights seen.

        HORATIO

            Well, sit we down,
            And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

        BERNARDO

            Last night of all,
            When yond same star that's westward from the pole
            Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
            Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
            The bell then beating one,--

            Enter Ghost

        MARCELLUS

            Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

        BERNARDO

            In the same figure, like the king that's dead.

        MARCELLUS

            Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

        BERNARDO

            Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.

        HORATIO

            Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.

        BERNARDO

            It would be spoke to.

        MARCELLUS

            Question it, Horatio.

        HORATIO

            What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
            Together with that fair and warlike form
            In which the majesty of buried Denmark
            Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!

        MARCELLUS

            It is offended.

        BERNARDO

            See, it stalks away!

        HORATIO

            Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

            Exit Ghost

        MARCELLUS

            'Tis gone, and will not answer.

        BERNARDO

            How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale:
            Is not this something more than fantasy?
            What think you on't?

        HORATIO

            Before my God, I might not this believe
            Without the sensible and true avouch
            Of mine own eyes.

        MARCELLUS

            Is it not like the king?

        HORATIO

            As thou art to thyself:
            Such was the very armour he had on
            When he the ambitious Norway combated;
            So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
            He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
            'Tis strange.

        MARCELLUS

            Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
            With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

        HORATIO

            In what particular thought to work I know not;
            But in the gross and scope of my opinion,
            This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

        MARCELLUS

            Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
            Why this same strict and most observant watch
            So nightly toils the subject of the land,
            And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
            And foreign mart for implements of war;
            Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
            Does not divide the Sunday from the week;
            What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
            Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:
            Who is't that can inform me?

        HORATIO

            That can I;
            At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
            Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
            Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
            Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
            Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet--
            For so this side of our known world esteem'd him--
            Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal'd compact,
            Well ratified by law and heraldry,
            Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
            Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror:
            Against the which, a moiety competent
            Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
            To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
            Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,
            And carriage of the article design'd,
            His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
            Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
            Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
            Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
            For food and diet, to some enterprise
            That hath a stomach in't; which is no other--
            As it doth well appear unto our state--
            But to recover of us, by strong hand
            And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
            So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
            Is the main motive of our preparations,
            The source of this our watch and the chief head
            Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

        BERNARDO

            I think it be no other but e'en so:
            Well may it sort that this portentous figure
            Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
           That was and is the question of these wars.

        HORATIO

            A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
            In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
            A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
            The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
            Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
            As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
            Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
            Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
            Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:
            And even the like precurse of fierce events,
            As harbingers preceding still the fates
            And prologue to the omen coming on,
            Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
            Unto our climatures and countrymen.--
            But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!

            Re-enter Ghost

            I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
            If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
            Speak to me:
            If there be any good thing to be done,
            That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
            Speak to me:

            Cock crows

            If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
            Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
            Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
            Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
            For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
            Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.

        MARCELLUS

            Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

        HORATIO

            Do, if it will not stand.

        BERNARDO

            'Tis here!

        HORATIO

            'Tis here!

        MARCELLUS

            'Tis gone!

            Exit Ghost

            We do it wrong, being so majestical,
            To offer it the show of violence;
            For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
            And our vain blows malicious mockery.

        BERNARDO

            It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

        HORATIO

            And then it started like a guilty thing
            Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
            The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
            Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
            Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
            Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
            The extravagant and erring spirit hies
            To his confine: and of the truth herein
            This present object made probation.

        MARCELLUS

            It faded on the crowing of the cock.
            Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
            Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
            The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
            And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
            The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
            No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
            So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

        HORATIO

            So have I heard and do in part believe it.
            But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
            Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill:
            Break we our watch up; and by my advice,
            Let us impart what we have seen to-night
            Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
            This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
            Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
            As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

        MARCELLUS

            Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know

            Where we shall find him most conveniently.

            Exeunt

Almost everybody these days leaves out the part where Hamlet is gossiping with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about the boy theater troupes - both the productions I saw did - and it's fully justifiable - Shakespeare was just being catty about his rivals, which, as much as I enjoy it, is not essential for the plot.

Also the "dumb show" - the mimed version of the murder of Gonzago which directly precedes the non-mime version of the murder of Gonzago, is hardly ever included. I think I've only ever seen one production that used it, the BBC's version with Derek Jacobi as Hamlet. And really, it's astounding that Shakespeare himself would use it, it's so incredibly excessive - talk about hammering home the point. Hey Bill, whatever happened to brevity being the soul of wit? And it's not like the play needs padding, it's already plenty long without it.

But in spite of the free and easy hand directors have with Shakespeare's plays (and much too free and easy for the most part in my opinion), you should NOT leave out the opening of the play.

First of all, it's exciting. It's got a ghost in it. And this is important for two reasons: first because it establishes that Hamlet is not crazy for thinking that he sees his father's ghost - in the world of the play everybody except Hamlet's mother sees the ghost whenever it shows up.

And second because then it absolutely ruins the joke of Scene 2:

    HAMLET

        Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats

        Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

        Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven

        Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!

        My father!--methinks I see my father.

    HORATIO

        Where, my lord?

    HAMLET

         In my mind's eye, Horatio.

It's pretty hard to read this as anything but a great gag that Shakespeare deliberately threw into the scene. It's hysterical when Hamlet says "methinks I see my father" and then Horatio looks around nervously (or in terror depending on the direction) because he thinks that Hamlet sees the ghost.

Both productions left this part in and even played it for laughs - but damn it, it doesn't work unless we've seen Horatio see the ghost of Hamlet's father!

Granted, in I-1 there is some long-ass exposition about Fortinbras, about which nobody gives a damn. I'd be fine if they wanted to cut that down a little. But the third reason you should not leave out I-1 is because we get to see Horatio. He bookends the play. He's vitally important to establishing Hamlet's character.  And you are a damn fool if you leave this out of the play:

    The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
    Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:

And also, Hamlet later tells Horatio that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in his philosophy - Act I Scene 1 shows this is literally true. After the soldiers tell Horatio they saw the ghost, Horatio says:

    HORATIO 

Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.

And  right after that, the ghost shows up. Suck it, Horatio!

And one more thing to all would-be directors of HAMLET:

ENOUGH with the mixing up Rosencrantz and Guildenstern! It's not in the play - some director, at some point, had Claudius get them mixed up and then Gertrude corrects him, and it's used by every director ever since. But it's a good bit. Not as good as "methinks I see my father" but still, it's pretty funny and most importantly, plausible. You know why? Because the king and queen have never met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern before. But in the production I saw yesterday, goddman HAMLET gets them mixed up too, and that's just stupid. Not only does it ruin a good joke with repetition, but it makes Hamlet look like an idiot. These are friends of his, of course he knows which one is which.

Sheesh.

McAllistrum's March

Finally, the definitive version of McAllistrum's March was posted to Youtube. I can listen to this piece twenty times in a row and not get tired of it. Just ignore the cheezy Celtic-y images on this video and enjoy the music. It's extremely repetitive, but nevertheless exciting because instruments are gradually added through the piece until it's the entirety of the Chieftains and the Belfast Harp Orchestra playing together and that's awesome.

The Bloggess wins again

Well I admit, I did not think the Bloggess could possibly outdo the giant metal chicken she gave her husband last year.

But I think that a sloth and a baby kangaroo are even better. Truly amazing. But now the pressure is on - how can she possibly top that?

J&B logo - I think I finally have it...

I think this is as close to humorous, contemporary, intellectual and sexy in a single logo as I'm ever going to get.

For the font geeks out there, the ampersand is Bernhard Modern Std and the rest is Smallstep Pro.

Real-time Earthquake map

Every now and then I think about moving to San Francisco. I was there for a week on business in December 1999 and I was incredibly impressed - it turned out to be just as beautiful as everybody said. And the weather just can't be beat - incredibly moderate. Yesterday, for example, in New York City the high temperature was 91 degrees - in San Francisco it was 67 degrees. I would so much prefer to live in a place with cool summers than hot summers - I never seem to have the kinds of summer fun anymore that makes the heat worthwhile.

When I was out there I remember thinking about maybe moving to San Francisco when I retired, but why wait until retirement? There are plenty of jobs in San Francisco for technical writers, not to mention a vibrant theatre scene.

But then of course there are the earthquakes. I found this amazing web site, the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) Earthquake Hazards Program and wow, do they have a lot of earthquakes in California. I knew they were a less-than-rare occurrence, but ye gods, I didn't realize just how less than rare. Like every day. There's even a Real-Time Earthquake map which indicates that there have been like 30 earthquakes in the San Francisco-Palo Alto region in the past 7 days. That's alot of earthquakes.

Seattle has pretty moderate temperatures too... and of course Microsoft.

How many of you are sentient?

I think Andrew Bellware is not a very good director. I even wrote a brief parody of his movie Angry Planet, so it's no surprise that I think his movie Earthkiller, available for free online here, is also not very good.

But don't listen to me. There is scathing commentary, some of it just for the trailer alone, online. Some of it is pretty funny:

Looks like a german porn intro

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lol this is that kind of movie that you're suppose to watch while you're high, haha.

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That was 46 seconds of my life I could have used on better things like getting my teeth pulled out.. I know not everyone can't have wast amounts of money to make movies for but there is no excuse for when already the trailer shows how bad the acting is...

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made in 1970's(looks like)

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Miles above earth.....there are women are running around in miniskirts

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And on and on. I also found this somewhat lengthier review of Earthkiller at imdb.com - this person seems to have watched the entire movie:

Earthkiller is one of those movies where afterwards you have two questions. The first is "What is it" and the second is "why did I bother watching it?" It was bad. The sets were fake and the acting and script was far worse. The CGI looked like a video game and the non-CGI effects were far worse. Usually you want a movie like this to stop tossing so much ketchup around. This one didn't have the money in their budget to use real ketchup...

I haven't read the script before Bellware got his hands on it, so it's possible it's much better than the final product. I suspect there was much more dialog in the original script because what's in the movie would fill about maybe fifteen pages - ten if you take out the "fucks" - and five of the pages left are spoken by a single actor, in the mystery-solving portion of the movie.

But I really must object to the criticisms of the acting - I can't speak for most of the actors, but I paid two of the actors in this movie, Nat Cassidy and Greg Oliver Bodine, to perform in plays of mine - Bodine in two different plays. And their acting was quite good.

Cassidy doesn't get to do much in Earthkiller besides insult the other space cadets (or whatever all the people with guns are supposed to be.) But bitchy people with guns is standard in Bellware's movies. In fact there are rarely more than three emotional states in Bellware's movies from what I've seen: surly, fearful and android.

So Cassidy doesn't do much in this movie, besides being surly, but he doesn't have anything to be ashamed of - other than agreeing to perform in a Pandora Machine movie.

Bodine on the other hand, does get a chance to do well. It helps that his character, Schroeder, gets half the entire dialog in the movie, since he delivers the exposition which solves the mystery of who the amnesiac android lady is and who the bad guy is.

And in fact, this an improvement over the matching scene in Angry Planet, in which Bodine's character also solves the mystery of the movie. The Earthkiller scene works better because Schroeder isn't an idiot, as the character in Angry Planet was, and Bodine even underplays the surliness in Earthkiller, considering that he's been mortally wounded by the space zombies haunting the spaceship and his primary goal in life when we meet him is to die before he also turns into a space zombie.

And you know that he will beg the fembot to kill him because people are always asking to be killed in this movie - or justifying why they have to kill somebody. Because otherwise they'll turn into killer zombies. Much of the plot of this movie is murky, but that particular point is made crystal clear thanks to incessant reiteration.

But you almost care that Bodine's character suffers and dies, because unlike every other character in the movie, his Schroeder has an inner life. He gets to display a variety of emotions - resignation, contempt, despair, and we even see him in a flashback as a competent, obedient soldier. It all goes by very quickly because the main purpose of his scene is to explain who in the hell is the manic pixie psychotic, played by David Ian Lee, and why he suddenly shows up 3/4 of the way through the movie. The fact that Bodine is able to convey a sense of a three-dimensional human in the very brief time he's given is a testament to his acting abilities. Which is why I used him in two productions of mine. If the acting in this movie is considered bad, it's not the fault of at least two of the actors in the movie.

If it wasn't for the random yet frequent death, this movie would be like an episode of Scooby Doo, with a gang of young people running around hunting and being hunted by mysterious, super-natural-seeming monsters. And if Bellware had any sense at all, he would have played up the humorous aspects of the scenario - although it's quite possible that surly insults are his idea of humor.

But I would suggest that Pandora Machine movies lack more than humor - they lack humanity. The spectacle of a bunch of surly people, about whom we know nothing, running around with guns, insulting each other and then getting killed is a kind of emotion-deadening assembly line. Characters are interchangeable, soul-less meat puppets

A very perceptive critic once noted that the main reason why the first three released Star Wars movies were any good was thanks to Harrison Ford. The Star Wars movies without Ford (episodes 1 - 3) lack the humor and fun of episodes 4 - 6 and that's because there's no character like Han Solo, and no actor with the charisma to pull off a Han Solo. Without Han Solo/Harrison Ford, Star Wars becomes way too much about midi-chlorians and virgin births and bureacracy.

I doubt he realizes it, but Bellware actually has an actor who could be his very own Harrison Ford. Although Bodine does a good job, an actor who stands out even more in this movie is Tom Rowen, who plays one of the interchangeable space cadets. He is given much less to work with than Bodine, but his personality and charisma come through in spite of that. He dominates every scene he is in, no matter what tired factory-issue dialog he's made to say. He's a natural-born movie actor.

If Bellware was smart, he'd give Rowen a Han Solo-like role and build the movie around that character. By which I mean to say, it will never happen.

J&B feedback

So what was I doing two years ago? I was working on the JULIA & BUDDY theme song - here is an early version. I was doing it for the first incarnation of J&B, the one-act version for the Midtown International Theatre Festival. This version of the song sounds very much like John Lennon's early post-Beatles period. A little like his version of Stand By Me.

So I was told by a theatre organization that J&B is a "charming, quirky comedy" and yet it still was not for them. I decided to take this as a positive sign - perhaps there is a theatre group that does produce charming quirky comedies out there somewhere.

Perhaps groups with guitars are not entirely on the way out.*


And someone has recently suggested they might be willing to co-produce J&B with me, and so it's probably for the best - if I'm involved in the production I know some director won't be hired to come along and fuck everything up.

I am still experimenting with the logo though...

*The Beatles were famously informed by a suit at Decca records that they had been rejected for a record contract because "groups with guitars are on the way out."

It must be said that the Fab Four were not gracious losers about it either. A few years later when asked about the incident, Paul McCartney remarked "I bet he's kicking himself now" to which Lennon added "I hope he kicks himself to death."

New Yorker Parity Report - July 9 & 16, 2012

Well at this rate the New Yorker will never reach gender parity in its by-lines. But at least it is reliably anti-Libertarian, and the article in this week's issue about the power struggle at the Cato Institute contains the most accurate description ever of the Libertarian "philosophy" -

By 2008, BB&T’s foundation had, according to the Charlotte Observer, given twenty-eight million dollars to twenty-seven different colleges, in order to, in the Observer’s words, “support the study of capitalism from a moral perspective.” Seventeen of those colleges promised to make “Atlas Shrugged” required reading in a class.

In several instances, Allison and the Kochs have supported pro-free-market curricula at the same schools, such as Florida Gulf Coast, a public university in Fort Myers, Florida, and Clemson, a public university in South Carolina.

What these programs and their donors share seems to be a view of society’s haves as not just lucky and talented but also as virtuous, and the have-nots as letting others carry their load. Government, meanwhile, is described as immorally aiding and abetting society’s losers at the expense of its winners.

The New Yorker Parity Report

A regular report on the gender parity - or lack thereof - of the current issue of The New Yorker based on table of contents by-lines
Includes fiction, non-fiction, poems. Does not include illustrations.

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A score of 50% means that half of all writers in the issue are female.
A score of greater than 50% would mean more female than male writers. This never happens.

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Parity change from previous week: +1%

July 9 & 16, 2012

Total writers: 20
male: 14
female: 6
gender parity score: 33%

Last week
Total writers: 21

male: 15
female: 6
gender parity score: 32%

LUCIFER'S interview

I enjoy interviewing the cast of the play of the week more than recording the play itself- there are some good funny moments in this video.

The first Play of the Week play

As always, a learning experience to do a new project. More information at the Play of the Week web site.

BITCHES IS CRAZY ~ or ~ Why I despise and loathe the Pulitzer Prize-winning play TALLEY'S FOLLY

In which I explain why I have a problem with a play that presents a stalker
who forces a woman to remain in a boathouse until she submits as a hero.

When I first saw Lanford Wilson’s TALLEY’S FOLLY, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, I didn’t even pick up on the horrific stalking and bullying aspect. This was in the early 1990s, when I first became interested in writing plays, and I considered it homework to go and see a community theatre production of the play in Haddonfield New Jersey. I picked the play exactly because it had won the Pulitzer Prize: I figured it had to be good. Like Shakespeare good.

But instead I was bored. It’s a ninety minute play but it felt like two hours. But I gritted my teeth and stayed until the end. I was walking out of the theatre I remember wondering whether I should abandon playwriting and go back to painting. If that was theatre, then I hated theatre.

My impression of the play, based on that long-ago production is that it's a long boring conversation,  with lots of exposition, and the man doing most of the talking. I don’t know why I didn’t pick up on the truly repulsive underlying message of the play - perhaps it was the way it was directed - I don't remember any physical force used, as it is specified in the stage directions of the published script.

The cultural gatekeepers have always been men (or the men's female enablers.) To this day the vast majority of movie and theatre critics in the traditional media are men. But thanks to the new technologies all kinds of excellent feminist commentary is available to the public. One of the best purveyors of feminist culture theory is a web site called Tiger Beatdown. And one of its best essays is called TIGER BEATDOWN FOR DUDES Presents: That’s Not Funny. No, Seriously Dude, It’s Not.

Read the rest of the essay here.