EDINBURGH DAY ELEVEN - BREAKING CUBES AND ADDING A FUCK YOU HARD

You blink your eyes twice, and time flies by. Two more shows to go. What happened? Didn't we just land? Somehow, it's been over a week. I've seen show, ran into old friends, eaten way too much haggis, laughed entirely too loud too often for anyone's comfort but my own.

I am a loud person. I am told that often. 

I can't help it. I don't mean to offend.

I just enjoy things. And when something is funny, I laugh. And when I speak, I speak.

No apologies. The world is full of much worse things than a person loudly enjoying their life.

Also, I may have kicked a hole in one of our cubes on stage last night.

We have this scene in the show between my character Ron, and his wife Denise, Played by aforementioned friend of blog, Tracy.

And we fight in it, and yell, and it gets ugly, and I storm off, and she sings this song "Only the Lonely" whose title always makes me think of that old Roy Orbison song but is a new one and a number I particularly love in this show, as it's dramatic, set up nicely by the scene going into it, and performed perfectly, and one of the moments in the show I think I directed well. 

A heart breaking work of staggering genius and all that. 

Nothing feels better than directing a moment and having an actor not only get what you're trying to do, but have them run with it. Soar. Transport the audience.

So the scene going into that moment is important.

So we're doing the scene last night. It's going ok. We're yelling. Doing the lines. Something feels a little different about the scene. We're playing off each other, but it's in some new zone. Usually Denise is more aggressive. Tonight, maybe it's my loudness, or the rain that day, but she's more leaning back, a little more of a slow burn kind of anger. 

Which fuels my character's/my anger. 

And we get to this point, right before I say "I want you to shut your fucking mouth..." and I stand up off a cube, and for some reason I kick the thing. 

I've kicked it a few times, both in rehearsal and in the show. But tonight, I have extra-kick mode on, and a kick it like I'm a field goal kicker and it's the Super Bowl.

And as I turn to say "Shut Your Fucking Mouth..." I notice a hole in the cube. About the size of a golf ball. And then, as I march off, where I'm supposed to say "Fuck you", I add a bonus "Fuck you hard."

I may be insane. 

Now, here's the thing. Part of me feels bad about this. 

But part of me feels good. I was playing the role. In the moment. And yeah, I kicked the cube and swore more. 

But that's live theatre. Shit happens. Actors go a little nuts. 

Or a lot. 

After the show, Lisa and I and some of the cast go Ceilidh Dancing, which is Scottish folk dancing similar to square dancing. You run around a lot, sweat your ass off, dance with strangers, and release all of the days worries. 

It's fantastic. I hang with cast mates and also old friend and fellow Fringe performer Katelyn Berrios, who was in the sublime How to Eat a Bear last year and has a great solo piece this year called The Basement Entertainer, which I saw in the morning and recommend. It's a new piece about trying to make it in the business, create some art, and somehow combine creative freedom with success. Definitely worth catching.

And now it's Friday. The day is clear to see shows and sights, then we perform, then I think as a group we are going to see a show.

Last year, on the Isle of Skye, I heard a tale of an Islander who married a faerie. They could only be together a year, then she would have to return to her world. Then spent a happy year together, full of love and magic. Then the time came, then walked to a bridge, kissed one last time, and she took the high road and he took the low, never to see each other in this world again. I feel like that now. Like the Fringe is my faerie, we'e had this grand time, but tick tock goes the clock, and the bridge awaits.

Now real life starts to creep into my mind. Now I start to prep for the next show, the latest gig. A bid for Rock of Ages. A new production of Rocky Horror Show I'm directing. Scripts that have been patiently waiting for me to get back to them as I have this adventure. 

Speaking of, time to head out, grab coffee, feel the cool morning air.

Loudly, of course.

Here's a song. Only the Lonely by Roy Orbison. 

SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION

So this morning, at the sort of early Eight-thirty call time, my young cast of Honk! at Reel Kids was looking bleary eyed, half-asleep, and in need of some energy. Usually, we start rehearsals with a quick physical and vocal warm up, followed with some improv. That way all three of our basic tools- voice, body, and mind- are ready to work. (Part of my training at San Jose State University, which we all had drilled into our brains, was that an actor's job is to "create a believable character in a given situation using their voice, body, and mind)

But this morning, it was clear something different was called for- something new and fun and that would knock us all out of ourselves. Too often in this life, I think we all sort of sleep walk our way through the day, barely aware of all the wonders that surround us. Yes, I know, there are plenty of mundane things out there, so try and keep your eye rolling to a minimum. There is magic in this world, numinous experiences patiently waiting for us to get with it and live in the moment, even if it's just for a few seconds.

Just across the street from Reel Kids there is this park with a path encircling the grounds. It's about half a mile long. I decided to forgo the usual warm ups, and we all went for a walk on the path- and sang the first several songs from the show. It was great. We took a walk together. We sang in public, and I don't know if it was the novelty of the moment, the weariness of the cast, or their bravery- but nobody seemed the least bit self-conscious about performing songs from a musical based on the Ugly Duckling.

I don't know if this was brilliant or boring. But I felt alive. I think we all did. And that was groovy.

THE LEAR OF MUSICAL THEATRE

I have seen the best stage version of the musical Gypsy ever done. I saw it Saturday. It was directed by Scott RC Levy. It was at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. It was epic. It was funny. It was full of spectacle, but also intensely intimate. I don't say this lightly. I don't say this off the cuff. This show was fantastic, and this company is consistently putting up the kind of theatre that reminds you why you go to theatre in the first place: in the hopes that you will be transported to another level of being, where strangers who are hauntingly familiar alternately titillate, endear, enrage, confuse, and ultimately enlighten you a tiny bit on the huge mystery of what it is to be a human being. Again, the company who is doing all this is the theatre at Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, where Mr. Levy is the artistic director.

While Gypsy ostensibly about the early days of the girl who would grow up to become the famous stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, it's really all about Mama Rose, the mother of favorite daughter Baby June and overlooked wallflower Louise- who of course turns out to be the one who grows up and achieves stardom. Mama Rose is a huge role. Mr. Levy calls it the Lear of musical theatre- and with good cause. Mama Rose has to be larger than life, brash, at times fragile, at other times immovable. A good Mama Rose has to be able to get you rooting for her, loving her- and then get you to find her a bit insane and mad at yourself for wanting her to succeed, and then get you to feel guilty about being mad at her. A.J. Mooney plays Mama Rose better than any I've ever seen- and I've seen a lot, including Bernadette Peters on Broadway. The moment she literally climbs on stage in the first scene, you can't help but be mesmerized. Mooney oozes presence, sex appeal, and just the right amount of madness to make her impossible not to gaze at in wonder every second she's on stage. She can sing to shake the rafters, moves like a natural born dancer, and has the kind of acting chops you just don't see all that often. Put simply, she rocks. Levy has surrounded her with a fantastic company, a brilliant set, outstanding costumes, and a rocking orchestra led by Roberta Jacyshyn. Standouts in the cast include Lacey Connell, who plays Louise. Connell gives us a Louise who is intensely lonely, a girl with an incredibly complicated relationship with her mother and also with her sister June, Mama Rose's clear favorite. Connell's Louise struck me as a little bit nutty herself, and her transformation into a rather rough Gypsy Rose Lee at the end of the play made complete sense to me- it was like seeing her in a certain way take on some of the not so nice aspects of her mother. Creepy, sad, and really great theatre. Equally excellent is Nicole Dawson as June- who clearly wants to get the hell away from her overbearing mother, and eventually does when she elopes with a boy from their vaudeville act named Tulsa- played by Ryan Miller who does a great job with the number "All I need is the girl". Dawson and Connell's duet about wishing their mother would settle down and get married is sweet, and just a little bit sad. I loved it. Stephen Day as the long suffering/smitten Herbie, who carries a torch for Mama Rose and puts up with a lot is so good I was rooting for him to make everything come out alright, even though I knew the story and how it would end. Also, Sally Lewis Hybl, Anita Lane, and Becca Vourvoulos as the three strippers who give Louise advice in Act Two are priceless.

What I really love about this production was the way Levy moved it along- making us laugh at the absurdity and wonder of a life seeking stardom, disarming us with the charm of theatrical dreams about the roar of the crowd and all that- and then ripping open our hearts and letting out a lot of dark, strange demons in the huge final number that Mama Rose sings.

Okay. Suffice to say, the show rocked, and you all need to go see any and all shows done at FAC.

And in December, don't forget to come to Boulder to see my new musical, ROSE RED.


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