Not a Call To Arms

Posted 12:43 PM by sean
I get hassled if I don't write a blog, but my guess is that some of my blogs of late have been tough to read all of. I probably know the names of the three people who read all the way through my Fringe blogs, and I don't think my parents or my wife really count.

So, I'm gonna say something here, and I want to keep it short.

I'm in my mid thirties now, which I'm sure seems old to some of you, but it feels really young to me. When I was 20, I made a list of parts that I wanted to play, a top ten list, and by the time I was 26 I had played almost all of them and none of it lived up to expectation. For the last eight years, my acting "career", for lack of a better word, has taken a turn I never thought it would.

Since 1996, if you don't count Shakespeare or Musicals, I have done only one play that had been previously produced. Naturally, the film and television stuff I've done was brand new, you don't tend to re-make old episodes of "Charmed" or whatever, but every single play I've done has been, for lack of a better word, a premiere. Every character I've made (save one) has never been performed before.

There was a foul mothed ad-exec who was given a deadline to come up with a new name for a drug that helps you sleep. He came up with "Souchite".

There was a lonely office worker who was trying to figure out how to fight for his marriage. He finds out his dog is sick and dying, and he and his wife have to work out either to end their marriage or how far they will go to fight for it.

There was a Southern military doctor in 1942 who had problems with authority and ended up stuck in an all black fighting unit, where he learned that everything he knew about black people was wrong.

There was the lost boy, floating around New York, drunk, frozen, unable to change his life who slowly loses everything, his money, his jobs, even his pride, until finally he loses himself and, in doing so, becomes free to have the life he really wants.

There was a gay computer technician who fought with his lover to make their relationship public knowledge, who lost the love of his life because the other guy was a coward.

There was the foul-mouthed wordsmith film-maker who was backed into a corner by losing his best friend and had to find a way to forgive himself, and to help the people around him forgive themselves, for circumstances that weren't just unimaginable to him, but unimaginable to anyone who grew up in America in the last quarter of the 20th century.

And there were about a dozen more.

So, what am I supposed to do? You don't know any of these guys, right? I didn't say "A Mormon guy who leaves his wife when he discovers he is gay and works for Roy Cohn", right? But, what am I supposed to do?

WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?

In a hundred years, I'll be dead. As dead as John Barrymore. As dead as Richard Harris. As dead as Richard *KLINE* will be. So, what am I supposed to do? I can't ask the question anymore, because the question leaves me frigid. The question of relevance, I can't ask it. What if I'm never famous, what if my work is never seen by more than a handful of people? What if these characters only become familiar to you when they are re-created by someone with cache?

I can't ask it, because I'm an actor, and this much is all I've learned. I'm actually totally liberated, if I were to quit, there would be only a handful of people disappointed. There would be a group of people who would say, "it's a shame you aren't acting any more, you were fantastic," but they wouldn't actually think it was a *tragedy* or anything. I just can't really quit, I just can't, I don't know how else to measure my life. Y'all had semesters, I had rehearsals, openings and strike. Hot weather means try to get a fall tour, fall weather means get a Christmas show, when the ice starts melting you gotta think about summer stock, and all the rest of the time you're trying to get a national commercial or a recurring role on a TV show.

Right now, I'm a CEO and inventor whose sole motivation is the planned obsolescence of the material he is creating. He needs the people to whom he is selling to get rid of the old things he invents as quickly as possible in order for his new things to be purchased. The town he lives in is based entirely around the purchasing of his newest products and the quick disposal of his old stuff.

Is this a metaphor for my own life, living as an actor/writer/producer of theater in New York? Why the hell would I even ask that question?

I have only one choice, to make the work it's own reward. Sure, I'm getting paid for the show I'm in now, and sure, it has some possibility of commercial success in a certain part of the theater world, but if it is, they will probably replace me with a different actor. Or maybe not. But this guy, making this guy the guy, is what I have to do.

Take My Wife

Posted 1:58 PM by sean
It's difficult for married people my age to talk about our wives. I mean, the word itself doesn't seem to mean what we want it to mean. Last weekend, my brother and I hung out with our wives on Sunday, and it wasn't exactly me and Ian drinking scotch and smoking cigars in the living room while our wives retired to the kitchen. They have us out IQ'ed by about 20 points apiece, and the four of us had a ranging day of conversation that included politics, cooking and art, and Ian and I just sort of held on for dear life and made the occasional fart joke.

So, it's really hard for someone like me to say, "My wife loves it when (x) happens". My cousins in Utah have wives, or are wives. Jordana is just this pretty girl who lives with me. When I call her my wife, I figure you assume some kind of maternal icon.

But I say it nonetheless. I have to. If you know me for a few weeks, at some point you figure out that I love acting and music, that I love cooking and eating. If you know me for a month or so, you'll probably learn that my whole family are musicians, that I'm a little morally uptight but not at all religious, that I have deep respect for some things and even deeper disrespect for others. If you only know me for one afternoon, just a coffee conversation, you'll hear my best friend's names, you'll know I have a big family, and you'll probably think I'm funny.

But if you have two minutes to talk to me, you'll know about my wife. I can't help it. If I tell you anything about me, it begins and ends with my married life. If you peel me away like an onion, you'll get past the race, the midwesterner, the southerner, the New York-er, the Californian, pretty fast, and deep down you'll find the fat kid trying to do good, the fail-er desperate to avoid failure. And that last peel before there is nothing, you will find the husband to Jordana.

She turns 28 today, the same age I was when I thought my life had ended, the same age when I was redeemed, like a thousand tickets at a skee ball counter. There isn't much behind that counter that she might want, but I hope I can be a ratty sweatshirt with a Carolina logo stashed in a corner that she can wear when all she wants is to be alone and warm.

Hey, Sean! Why aren't you sleeping?

Posted 2:04 AM by sean
Thanks for asking! Several reasons, it turns out.

1) The show I'm doing right now is the perfect balancing act for my type of insomnia. The rehearsals are wonderful enough and the rest of the cast is fun enough that I walk out of rehearsal thrilled. However, this isn't a cast of outrageous talent and we have about three more rehearsals. And we're not off book. And large stretches of the show haven't been staged. And we keep cancelling the few rehearsals we have. And it's a musical. So, y'know, there's that.

2) My friend Deb is about to make the biggest mistake of her life, but there's nothing I can do about that. She's marrying a bad man.

3) The show I'm about to do is running during the week of Steve's wedding. The only good thing about that is we are starting rehearsals on August 1 and, instead of opening the 13th (which was a possibility), we're opening the 18th. Again, I'm excited about the play itself, but the producers are first time and are a little shaky. A google search reveals that we are listed on the Fringe site and that's it, and for a show in the fringe, we are gonna sink without a trace. But I'm excited about all other aspects and since I'm not producing, I'm just gonna focus on acting for once.

4) I have been writing a lot of music lately, my tri-annual musical itch getting scratched, and it's changing my ears in a painful way. For instance, the song "Crash" by Lisa Germano has a snare sound in it that made me cry on the subway. Seriously, why would I make something like that up, it's gay as hell, but it happened. "Wicked Little Town" from the soundtrack to Hedwig was making my heart feel like a deployed airbag. And when you are hearing that clearly, when tiny moments are just *fucking* with you, do NOT listen to Revolver.

I mean, how were they that good? For the rest of you, is there someone you turn to that shames you? If you are trying to write a TV drama, do you check in on The West Wing and think you are in the presence of greatness? At the end of "Here, There and Everywhere" there are doubled finger snaps for about 8 measures, which I had heard before, but they start when the vocal line on "love never dies" splinters and they stop when Paul sings the final "here, there, and everywhere" not at the end.

Yep, that's keeping me up.

5) A new wrinkle, I seem to have hurt my shoulder. It's actually a fair amount of pain, enough that it wakes me up when I roll over. Of course, I'm an insomniac, so mice next door wake me up, but I've still decided to go to a doctor and get my shoulder looked at. I'm hoping I can just get a shot and finish the eighth and ninth, I'm so close to a perfect game...

6) I love the idea of being part of a community of creative people who are developing entertainment for the masses, and sometimes I feel really close to being in that community and other times it feels like I'm just like those guys who smoke pot and sit on a couch and say, "they should make a TV show about skateboarding. Y'know?" Although I don't smoke pot, and I don't think they should make a TV show about skateboarding, sometimes I feel like if you're on the couch, you're on the couch, the rest are just details.

7) I'd like to have a career as an actor. Right. Now. Anyone with ideas can email me.

8) I'm just kidding about Deb.

Parody? More like Pair O' Deez

Posted 10:40 AM by sean
Let's do a little research...

Satire- 1. A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit, or 2. Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity.

Parody- 1. A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule.

We've already learned something, right? Satire mentions Irony and Wit in several places, Parody doesn't. Parody has one aspiration, to imitate in order to ridicule, and it is very effective. One of the most brilliant purveyors of parody alive today is Christopher Guest, who's work is actually so sublime that ridicule usually makes way for genuine affection. This Is Spinal Tap was straight out mockery, as was Guffman, and yet we love the people, we take them seriously. Best In Show and A Mighty Wing somehow managed parody without hostility, ridicule as affectionate ribbing. He is a master.

But look at what he has chosen to parody. In every circumstance, he shows our folly by chosing for his subject matter something that is being held incredibly precious by an ever shrinking audience. Heavy Metal, Community Theater, Dog Shows and Folk Music Festivals are all disenfranchised groups of people who live for their particular passion, and the arc of his work is to get us to take our own little niches less seriously.

I didn't laugh the first time I saw Waiting For Guffman, because the play I was in was NOT AS GOOD as the play in the movie. They had a much better cast and way better sets. Jesus, they had a live band. But I got the joke, eventually.

Satire doesn't necessarily use the characteristic style of any one thing, it's job is to use wit to attack vice or folly. Satire has largely now become a word used by politicians to denote anyone both comedic and fire-breathing. Al Franken and Dennis Miller come to mind, although I'm sure Dave Chapelle and other party-neutral comics would also fit.

For theater, it's hard to see the satire for the snot, unfortunately. The Importance Of Being Earnest, Dinner At Eight, A Little Night Music, etc., there is a list of satirical plays but most of them seem to be reserved for another time, set in another age. As Irony has taken over our lives, satire has taken a back seat to parody, and it's a shame. Outside of stand-up comics (and late-show desk jockeys who are essentially stand-ups) (or sit-downs, I guess), any satire is mismarked a "dark" comedy, and doesn't usually see much daylight.

There is nothing that says that parody ought to be insightful. Lucky for the some participants in the Fringe festival this year.

In terms of direct parody, there are a fair number of plays that feature George W. Bush. I haven't seen any of these plays, it's possible that they are wonderful, but my personal world has no room for seeing our current sitting president who is presiding over one of the most outrageous presidencies ever dramatized. I devour news sites, I buy books, I am terrified of when the next attack will be and who should be preventing it, if that's even possible. This is just me, and remember, I'm an idiot, but I just can't possibly go see a play where Bush is being dramatized. I want, in the worst way, to get in a room with a group of insightful people and discuss the political landscape and how it can be altered, but if you've written a snotty play about "Dubya" and Jesus, you can kiss my ass.

Now, there are several other direct parodies. One is mocking "Dukes of Hazzard" a wildly popular, lowest common denominator TV show from the 80s that is so well known that short shorts are called "Daisy Dukes". "Showgirls", a terrible movie that has a huge cult following, so much so that it is being shown in theaters at midnight like "Rocky Horror", is being redone. With sock puppets. Yet another play has chosen to satirize "Goonies", a STEVEN SPEILBURG movie that is in the top ten most quoted movies of our generation.

So, looking at these three, what possible insights do you hope to give me? Am I going to learn something about any of these three shows that I don't already know, that all my friends don't already know? That countless thousands and thousands of people my age, younger, and older don't already know? My *MOM* knows about these three shows, she's 73. My *NEPHEW* has these shows memorized, he's 19. Why should I care? Seriously, if you google yourself and get here, tell me why I should care. Here

Save The Goondocks!
Harvey Finklestein's Sock Puppet Showgirls
Big Trouble In Little Hazzard

There, now you can google your shows and find me and explain to me why I should see your show. If I go, I generally bring about fifteen people with me, so it's worth your time.

The Fringe isn't without what appears to be good parody, though. There is a show that is being presented as an 8th Grade Drama Group. That is a great idea. I mean, I was there for that, but it isn't something that the E! Channel has already done a special about. Snow White is being retold in what appears to be three languages with audience gate crashers. Again, something I haven't already made jokes about with my own friends. "The Life and Times of a Wonder Woman" is about a cool ass show that hasn't been beaten to death in pop culture already.

I mean, parody isn't dead. There is a show going up called "The Precinct" and the tagline is "Five cops. One Killer. No plot." That's a joke I haven't heard before. And The Fringe is still amazing. Which I guess is my point. If I care about politics and the war and my upcoming vote, don't you think I would be more interested in a show like "Valiant" which describes itself as "a word for word account of women's experiences in war throughout the 20th century" than something called "Dementia Presidentia" wherein Jesus appears as the new Cheif of Staff?

Maybe I've gotten too old. But I still like fart jokes, I still like people getting kicked in the noots. I just don't think old wit is still wit, and I don't think this administration is funny.

That thing? Just below the hem? No-one ever talks about that...

Posted 11:39 AM by sean
Following my friend Mac, here's a list of shows I'm either going to or not going to in the NYC Fringe Festival

"9/11- The Book of Job"- Please. If you killed me and tried to drag my corpse into this show, I hope my lifeless body would resist.

"Apocalypse, book one"- I'm only going to say this once. If you're making a show wherein either the President or Jeus Christ make an appearance, I'm not going.

"Another Cat and Another Moon"- This one has clowns and sounds kinda weird. A show actually on the Fringe and one that is probably long on sweet.

"Beware the Man Eating Chicken"- I like the title. It takes you a second to figure out, so that bodes well for the play.

"Big Trouble in Little Hazzard"- This kind of fucking show need a blog all it's fucking own. These guys can swing. Satire my ass. Y'know what? Check in later, I'm writing a whole goddam blog about shows like this.

"Browntown"- Three brown skinned actors are invited to audition for a MOW in Hollywood called "The Color Of Terror". This is right up my alley.

"Becoming Woman"- Any show with either one or two actors, I'm not going. One or two people being an ass pretty much sums up dinner with my friends, and I do that about four times a week. I aint paying to see people I don't know do it.

"Cane's Bayou"- Has a warning about nudity and under director it says "ensemble". Very promising.

"Chekov On The Wing"- I may not agree with Mac about everything but... actually I generally agree with Mac about everything. This dude can swing. By swing, I mean "on deez nuts".

"A Chicken and Its Breast"- Okay, here's the thing. The description says "an audacious young lady attempts to charm the audience in a hilarious alienated whirlwind", and that sound hilarious to me. I love alienating whirlwinds.

"Confessions of a Mormon Boy"- I just don't think I can. One man show? Music? Gay? Ex-Christian? Check, check, check, check, check please. It's all very good for you to have been Mormon and now you're not, but I just can't indulge you.

"The Dead Sea"- Dark horse possibility. A guy returns home to talk to his brothers and dad, that's it. That sounds like a *play*, and not some kind of juggling, tap dancing bullshit.

"The Disembodied Soul"- Fucked up Chinese break beats and supernaturalism. Word. I'm there.

"Ellen Craft"- Gotta support the home team. There is no way in the world I am missing this.

"An Evening of Semiautobiographical, Highly Self-Indulgent Theater"- You're telling me up front, and you're telling me you're naked, so I'll bite. If it's as bad as the title, I got no-one to blame but myself.

"Gork! The Retard Always Wins"- Okay, I know I said no one-person shows, but I'll go to this. She talks about her retarded brother as they grew up in Iowa. Again, the home team, I got no choice.

"Granola! The Musical"- Jesus Christ. I would go to this show if a) It was free, b) The seats were comfortable and the theater was air conditioned and c) The show was cancelled.

"Haven: A New Play with Music about Refugees and America"- Give me a goddam break. What stupid ass retard includes "a new play" in the title of their play? A musical about Cameroonian torture survivors escaping to America? There should be a place where people who survive musicals can escape to.

"High Cotton"- This actually looks fun and it feels like the home team again.

"Irish Authors Held Hostage"- I'm trying to leave the shows Mac's mentioned alone, but this actually looks pretty fun.

"John Walker:The Musical" & "Jonestown: The Musical"- Two shows, and I can tell you why I pick the latter over the former. The "American Taliban" was pop invention, whatever personal drama or whatever he went through, it doesn't mean that much to me. The Jonestown Massacre has been with me since childhood, it's one of the most dramatic events of the last half century. The two guys who wrote about Jonestown could have written about anything, and they chose an incredibly compelling, incredibly smart story to dramatize.

(People submitting to the Fringe Festival for next year, take notice: The people chosing the plays seem to like sperm bank plotlines. Just a bug in your ear.)

"The Last Detail"- Two guys transporting another to jail and the various characters they meet in 1970s America. I don't ask for much, and this seems like just barely enough to get me to go. I just want people revealing themselves, that's it.

Okay, there are about thirty musicals in this year's festival so..

"LULU"- It's set in the silent movie era and the score is lush and jazzy. Better than anything claiming to be a "TeknoPopera". I'm serious, that's the quote. "Mankynde" can also swing.

"The Pet Goat Convention"- The name alone, and I'll come see it. Not a musical? Awesome, I'm there.

"Project"- Okay, this is what I want. Four businessmen fighting for control of something. Perfect.

Look, I'm sure it all has a place, but that circus clown bullshit just doesn't mean anything to me. I don't want to see improv, I don't want to see one person shows. I just don't. I wrote one and decided not to perform it, it just isn't my thing. I want to see people.

I know, I know, it's a "Fringe" festival or whatever, but the truth is that a lot of this is leftist shock talk or young person navel gazing. What on earth could someone under the age of 60 have to talk about for two hours? If you aren't Elaine Stritch, I don't want to come see your goddam one man show, even if you play twenty characters.

Also, the best writers in the world live to write, the best actors live to act, the best directors live to direct. I'm not saying you can't do two or three of these things, I'm just saying that if you are doing more than one, don't be surprized if you are better at one than the other, and that someone else would be better than you at the thing you aren't as good at. So, if you're doing two or three of these things, one of them is being done not as well as it could be.

The preceeding is, of course, not true for my company. But that's why we're better than everyone.

Anywhoo

"Reconstruction"- A married couple rebuilds their marriage and never leaves their bed. See? Is there a motorcycle? No. Is there assinine snide commentary about the state of our nation? No. I'm going to this.

(Another piece of advice: The Fringe *loves* if you talk shit about Reality TV. And "a one-(person) show about growing up (fill in ethnicity) in a (major urban center)(fill in opposing ethnicity) ghetto" so you could have "a one-goat show about growing up Hassidic in a Chicago Shiite Ghetto" and you'll be just fine.)

"Save The Goondocks"- You guys should be ashamed of yourselves. See my next blog on parody/satire.

"Sound Of The Estate"- I'm differing from Mac here (I think) because this actually sounds cool. Uncle Vanya set in a recording studio. I know, more home-team, but I gotsta

"Suicide/Joke"- I'll be at every performance of this play, I promise you. Every single one. And every rehearsal.

(I just called Mac because I got to a play called "This is Murphy's Law" and I lost my shit for a second. When I see that an Icelandic multimedia play got chosen over "Lucretia", I'm okay with that, but this play had better win a goddam *obie* one day, or I'm gonna figure the procedure is totally random...)

"Training Wisteria"- It looks like a good divorce tragicomedy, and I loved shit like this. More divorce plays. And Jonestown musicals.

"Vampire Cowboy Trilogy"- See, this is a Fringe show. Weird ass kung-fu fighting film-noir spoof. I can totally get behind this.

"The WingDing Doodle Club"- Howdy Doody meets Dog Day Afternoon. Awesome.

"Young, Sexy and Talented"- Obviously I've run out of steam because I just jumped to the last two I would consider seeing and I jumped over all the stuff that made my blood boil. I will always like stories about people in acting class, especially if they are neurotic as hell. For me, that's comic gold.

Okay, one more post, later, about goddam satire/parody and then no more about this festival.