Roots

I originally started this blog with the intent of writing "open letters" to people. Not anyone specific necessarily, but communities, groups, organizations, what have you. I wrote one to New Jersey once. It was amazingly lame.

I'm feeling generally dissatisfied about life recently. I can't really put a finger on it, but I have a good feeling it's because I'm not doing what I want to be doing. I want to be on stage or in front of a camera, or writing a play or a book. That's what I went to school for.  I spent five years learning about Brecht and Stanislovski and Brooks and MacIvor (it was in Canada, after all). I split my focus between queer theatre and semiotics. I got to work with some of the largest queer playwrights and production companies in Canada, and I wrote papers on how eight blocks of wood painted black are all you need to mount "America Hurrah!" because a box is a chair is a throne is a castle is a kingdom is a tyranny.

I miss it. I want to go back to it. I want to memorize lines and freak out when I drop one. I want to go through the long, agonizing hours of a level set and q-2-q and see the finished product. I want the costume fittings and the breathing exercises and the tongue twisters. A hot cup of coffee in a proper copper coffee pot. She sells sea shells by the sea shore. Lemon face, lion face. Unique New York. Toy boat.

The last show I was in was a modern translation of "The Bacchai" by Colin Teevan. I played Cadmus, the aged King and founder of Thebes, who killed a mighty dragon and sowed its' teeth in the ground, from which the people of Thebes grew. He was a grandfather of Dionysus, god of wine and the theatre.

The first play I did was Shakespeare. I loathe Shakespeare. Mostly because no one ever plays it right. They speak in verse whenever its performed, even at college levels. It's not meant to be spoken in verse! In fact, the only reason I can stand reading or watching any production of Romeo and Juliet is because when I stage managed the show a couple years ago, the director brought everyone together and told us not to take the show seriously. The greatest love story ever told? Hardly! It was two horny teenagers who wanted to bone. Juliet was only fourteen and Romeo was seventeen. HORNY TEENAGERS. That's it!

I'm getting nostalgic.