LIFE IS SHORT, MOVIES ARE SHORTER

My last post mentioned Uncle Vanya, one of my favorite plays of all time. I've been in it once, playing the idealistic doctor Astrov; written a stage adaptation of it called Fenway: Last of the Bohemians, which sets the story on a faded hippie commune in the 1980s had a run in NYC in 2007; and wrote a pilot for a series based on Fenway, called Sunny. 

I clearly dig it.

The other day, I went to a matinee screening of Drive My Car, which follows a man in Japan who is directing a production of Uncle Vanya and dealing with loss, grief, infidelity, and life in general. 

I dug it the most.

The movie is three hours long, which I suppose is a long time for a movie.

Even though I can binge watch four or five hours of The Clone Wars in one sitting, no problem. And I can play Contest of Champions on my phone forever. I can also sit on a plane pretending not to worry about crashing for many hours as well. 

So I guess three hours isn't really all that much of an ask for a film. I mean, I love movies, stories, images and sound. I love popcorn, sitting in the dark, and losing myself in other worlds. Three hours is nothing, really. 

Life is short, and movies are shorter. 

So I spent three hours lost in a world full of people who have sorrow and regret and joy and hope. People who mourn the dead and are haunted by memories of what could have been, what should have been, and will never come to light now. People who have had their hearts broken, and broken hearts as well. People who makes huge mistakes. Some mistakes are made due to a passion they can't control. Some are the result of a sense of anger that can't be fully articulated and so comes out in unintended ways, with unintended consequences. 

Three hours with people who struggle with their daily lives. 

So I spent three hours in an alternate reality that was shockingly like the one I live in.

Not only is there a lot of Vanya in the film, there is also a bit of Waiting for Godot, another favorite of mine. 

I seem to like stories about life being rough that are supposed to be funny but that lots of people find maudlin.

I think there are some folks in the world who find tragedy humorous. And comedy to be full of sadness and frustration. 

Maybe the theatre masks, comedy and tragedy, should just be called The Masks of Life. 

Now masks are things we put on to present a certain trait or character, to hide who we really are and what we are really feeling. As I think of this, I think of how I present myself to the world. Usually, I wear the comedy mask, and point out all the contradictions that race back and forth over the field of our lives. Other folks I know seem to wear the tragedy mask, and come off as most happy when relating to others the worlds woes, as well as the travails of themselves, their families, their co-workers, the Kardashians, you name it.

We are a strange species, to be sure. 

But we are also glorious. 

I think that is the main thing I got from Drive My Car. That even though we make gigantic mistakes, and don't do what we should; even though we betray one another and ourselves, there is within us a greatness, a possibility for kindness and love, when confronted with the horrors of existence. 

We can laugh and cry and hold each other's hands. And we can have compassion for ourselves and others when we aren't able to do any of that.

And we can sit in a movie theatre for three hours.

Today's song if Frente!'s cover of New Order's Bizarre Love Triangle.

And for today's bonus material, here is the final bit from my play Fenway. Fenway is the Uncle Vanya Character, and Reality is Sonya, his niece.

FENWAY

I can't do this. This isn't my life. It can't be! I don't know what to do. I don't know who to be. How do you go on living in this God damned world? Can anyone answer that for me?

REALITY

By living your life. By trying to make a difference. By trying to do something worthwhile in this world. I know you feel terrible. I know it seems like the end of the world. But it isn't, not really. This is just the hand we've been dealt, pure and simple. I can’t tell you why. But I can tell you that we'll live with it. We'll deal with whatever life throws at us. If we have to, we'll work crappy jobs for crappy people we don’t like or even know. Maybe we won’t find the love we want, or the home we need. Maybe our nights will be long and empty. Our lives might seem nothing more than a sad, lonely parade. So what? We'll do the best we can with what we have, quietly, with dignity. And when we get to Heaven, and I promise you we will get there, we'll talk about all the hard times, the tears and frustrations and injustices. We'll cry for a hundred years if we have to. And God will cry with us and hold us in her arms. We'll just cry for as long as it takes. And then, after we let it all go, we'll realize that we're in Heaven, and all is well. We'll be able to talk about our lives and actually smile. Won't that be something? To be able to smile at our lives? And finally, we'll sleep the sleep of angels and dream dreams that defy explanation. That's what's we'll do. I have faith, Uncle Fenway. I know that sounds crazy, but I do. I believe.

THIS THING WE'RE LIVING IS NOT A LIMITED SERIES

As I was getting ready for  our morning walk, I turned on the news to see what is happening in Ukraine. I think we all do some variation of this throughout the day, usually several times. Mostly, I turn on to see if Zelensky is still alive. And as I was watching the coverage, I realized that in some weird way, a lot of the Ukraine invasion has become a sort of limited series we are all watching. Something we care about, but still can turn off whenever we need to so that we can go to our jobs, or go grab a pizza or whatever. And as I'm thinking about that, the newscaster announces "price of gas above $4 a gallon for first time in years". 

And I think, how fucking awful is it that while this network is streaming onto our screens images of people who are literally fighting for their lives that the same network felt it was worth mentioning that we might be paying more for gas. 

If the fact that gas prices go up is as important as an invasion that could very possibly set off World War Three, the time, as Hamlet said, is out of joint.

We need to all take a step back and consider what is important.

On a system wide basis. We have really got to find a better way to run this world we live in. It just feels like the current one, where corporate interests run by a small percentage of the population do everything they can solely to make money at the expense of everything else, does not lead us to a healthier lifestyle.

And of course, there's the added bonus of how we are killing the planet.

I would think that would cut into profits, not having anyone alive. But what do I know.

Anyhow, my main thought is that we have to remember, every day, that what is happening in the world is not a limited series on Netflix. It is not an overlong Tik Tok video. It is not a rant by Tucker Carlson or a song by Bob Dylan. 

Those are all reflections, impressions, sales pitches, and ways people express themselves.

But they are not that elusive truth we all seem to inherently want.

This blog is just my what I happen to think and typed three days a week. Nothing more or less. 

I am all for entertainment. For thoughts and ideas being expressed. 

But we have to also balance that with critical thinking. And Experiencing life in the moment, not filtered through the internet or television or a book or blog or poem or song. 

Those are things meant to augment our lives, not replace them. 

As David Mamet wrote in his adaptation of Uncle Vanya before he lost his frigging mind, "This thing we're living? It's our life!"

Watch the news. Read books and magazines and blogs. Especially this one. Listen to music. 

Fuck yes.

But also take a long walk. Meet a stranger and say hello. Go talk in person with someone you haven't talked to in person with for a long time.

Touch a flower. Feel the sun on your face. Tend to your garden. 

Yeah. Tend to your garden, like Voltaire said to do at the end of Candide.

Here's today's song. It's Make Our Garden Grow from Leonard Bernstein's Candide.

And in honor of the state of Florida, please, all of you, Glitter and Be Gay.

  

MADISON'S LAMENT

My description of Fenway: Last of the Bohemains continues with the character of Madison.  I named the character Madison after the VJ from MTV Kennedy, who was this right wing, hipster that was all the rage for a while back in the day.  Get it?  Madison and Kennedy are both former presidents.  Oh, the cleverness of me!  Anyway, Kennedy always seemed a little nutty to me- like she was trying to prove something, and was sort of pissed off at the left for some unknown, personal reason that had nothing to do with politics.

Madison is the beautiful trophy wife of a right wing pundit named Big Jon.  Their marriage is not exactly the portrait of marital bliss   She once was a headstrong young woman in love with her college professor, Moss- but that was seven years ago.  She has since rejected the politics and idealism of the left for the supposedly more down to earth thinking of the right.   Now, Moss has come into her life again.  And to make matters worse, her step-daughter Sunny has just confessed to being in love with Moss.   Here she is talking to herself.

MADISON

This is hopeless.  Of course he wouldn't think of her like that, she’s just a kid...Why don't people ever end up with the ones who'd make them happy?  Why am I talking to myself?   It's this place.  Drives everyone crazy. A crumbling commune full of faded hippies and forgotten dreams.  Then along comes Moss- the passionate artiste who quotes Wordsworth by heart and actually lives in the real world...I bet he makes love with his entire being.  Oh my God.  What the Hell am I talking about?  This is nuts - I'm crazy! What am I thinking.  No! No!  NO!  (pause) He does something to me, though. Fenway's right.  I should do something wild.  Shake things up. Who am I kidding?  That'll never happen.  Will I tell my husband how I feel?  Of course not.  Do I go to Moss and confess that the last seven years of my life have been a complete and total disaster?  Never.  So what will I do?  Fearless modern woman that I am, I stay in my little cage.  Brilliant.  Fear may be over-rated, but it scares the shit out of me.  But then again, sometimes he looks at me, and...God Damn it!  I wish I had never heard of Moss or this island or Big Jon Humphrey!

That's Carrie Brewer as Madison and Jack Halpin as Moss in the production of Fenway staged by Boomerang Theatre Company and Impetuous Theatre Group.

You can buy a digital copy of Fenway at Indie Theater Now for less than two bucks- 

so what are you waiting for?  

GET YOUR THEATRE ON

MADISON & BIG JON- THE HAPPY COUPLE

As I've been saying, my play Fenway: Last of the Bohemians has just been published by Indie Theater Now.  It's an American Vanya, set on a fading commune in the mid-1980's.  Among the characters are Big Jon, a self proclaimed "born-again convservative".  Big Jon used to be a minor figure in the counter-cultural movement of the 1960's.  He got into the trouble with the law, and for years lived underground.  Now, he's sold out, become a conservative pundit, and has a new trophy wife, Madison.  Madison is coming to realize that life as a young Republican is not all it's cracked up to be.  Here's a bit of a scene between the two of them late one rainy night:

BIG JON

Isn't it funny that everybody listens to Fenway and his fellow burn outs, but the moment I say a fucking word, everyone goes ballistic? Even if I am an asshole, even if I am a selfish jack-ass, haven't I the right to be one, at my age? Haven't I earned it? I'm seriously asking you, haven't I the right to be respected?

MADISON

(shudders) It's freezing, I'm shutting the window. (shuts it) Have I ever said you don't deserve respect?

BIG JON

I dedicated my whole fucking life to the pursuit of truth.  (stands up and begins to pace the room, gesturing with his joint for emphasis) I was a freedom rider!  I went to Woodstock, for fuck's sake.  I got arrested with Abbie Hoffman.  That's where I'm coming from- and, while I will never regret my decision to grow up and join the real world - I do find a lot of it tiresome.  No matter what side of the fence you're on, people are still assholes.  That's one of the great truths of life, baby.  People suck.  I want you to know that, because I love you. (takes another hit off his joint) I want it all, you know?  The whole enchilada. I want my book to sell more copies so that we can live a better life! At least in the sixties I was a minor celebrity.  Not that I miss that time- But, God damn, sitting around up here with nobody to talk to sucks ass.  What I'm trying to say is, I'm miserable enough as it is- I don't need you to make me feel worse- you hate me because you think I'm old!

MADISON

Age has nothing to do with it.  Besides, I'll be an old hag soon enough, and then we can bitch and moan together until we drop dead.

Don't they seem happy?

FENWAY- AN AMERICAN VANYA

My play Fenway: Last of the Bohemians, just got published online by Indie Theatre Now. This is the fifth play I've had published on that most indispensable site, and I couldn't be happier.  Of course, the voices told me to cut an entire scene last night.  Woke me up, in fact.

What voices?  The ones that tell me what to do from time to time.  I know, that makes me insane.  I'm cool with that.  It's not like they're  telling me to go on a shooting spree or anything like that.  No, they just wake me up from time to time and tell me what to write.

What scene did they tell me to cut?  The first scene of the play.  The entire freakin' scene.

What's left?  A leaner, faster show- the product of several readings in NYC, a reading by Seattle Playwrights Collective, a production by Boomerang Theatre Company & Impetuous Theatre Group, and a workshop reading by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  As I wrote in my last entry, it's based on Uncle Vanya, by Anton Chekhov- but it's one hundred percent American- dealing with the rise of conservatism, and the struggle of the liberals to cling to their ideals in an increasingly hostile world.  It's also kind of funny.

Here's an excerpt- Moss, the local environmentalist who also works as a doctor at the methodone clinic is talking with Rita, hippie chick with pot brownies, about how old he feels:

MOSS

I fight the good fight, try to stop them from destroying the planet- they lock me up.  You know what I am?  The Lorax.  I speak for the trees- and it's made me little and ugly and alone.

RITA

Have a brownie.

MOSS

I don't want a fucking brownie! (pause) I pulled a triple shift at the clinic last week.  Junkies to the left of me, junkies to the right...this one- he was fourteen.  Isn't that crazy?  We live in a world that has fourteen year old junkies.  He went into cardiac arrest.  Fourteen years old, addicted to junk, and going into cardiac arrest. And I...I did everything right- everything!  I shot him up with adrenaline- pounded his chest, blew air into him...I just wanted to force him to stay alive, to maybe somehow become a normal little boy...but he was more determined than I was.  Fourteen years old.  You should have seen his face-  his sweet, sad, dead little innocent face. Like a fallen angel. (pause)  I don't think I was ever fourteen.

RITA

Have a brownie.

Yes, I want you to buy a copy.

And yes, more excerpts will be coming soon.

LAST OF THE BOHEMIANS

So Fenway: Last of the Bohemians, is set to be published online by Indie Theatre Now.

And I dig that.  As soon as it's up, I'll put the link up here.  Of course, you already can go there and buy Last Call, Muse of Fire, Burning the Old man, and Some Unfortunate Hour- all for less than a buck fifty.  

Anyway, below are my author's notes for Fenway.  No doubt, there are names missing that I will add as soon as I get them. 

AUTHOR’S NOTES – The inspiration to write Fenway came on the night that George W. Bush got re-elected.  I was at The Magician, a bar on the Lower East Side of NYC, watching the returns with some friends, and I wondered what happened to all those people from the 1960’s who were supposed to change the world?  Where were those lost idealists and protesters? It seemed like they had all vanished, died, or sold out.  I started to think about how liberalism had seemed to be on the decline in America since about 1980, when Reagan got elected, and how hippies were now pretty much a joke, a mostly forgotten stereotype.  And somehow, I got to thinking about Uncle Vanya.

I have loved the play Uncle Vanya ever since I saw a production of it done at The Western Stage of Salinas directed by my friend Jon Selover.  It’s so funny and sad and pertinent. I remember watching Julian Lopez-Morillas as Astrov in Act Three going on about the shrinking forests and thinking maybe the speech was an insert, penned by a modern writer.  But no, turns out old Anton was an environmentalist.  This particular production was brilliant- fast and furious and thought provoking- not unusual for that theatre company.  If there was one part of the play that I didn’t completely relate to, it was how Vanya was so mad at Serebryakov.  I got that Vanya was in love with the professor’s wife- but there was a deeper sense of betrayal at the professor.  I don’t know if it was that version of the script (Mamet’s), or where I was in my life at the time, but it just didn’t quite click for me.  But then, watching George W. Bush on the screen, it clicked.  Serebryakov was a sell-out, the equivalent of all those people from the 1960’s who had once stood for peace, love and understanding but had decided to instead become staunch defenders of the status quo.  And I could see in my mind’s eye Uncle Vanya set in the 1980’s, during the Reagan Revolution, on an old hippie commune.  Astrov could be a Greenpeace type who works at a methadone clinic, Vanya a burnt out ex-hippie, and Serebyrakov a former radical turned conservative.  Often, when I get an idea for a play, it’s like that.  I see the whole world, and several of it’s characters.  I don’t sleep much, and become sort of annoying to people, as all I can talk about for weeks is the story.  I wrote the first draft quickly.  I would have friends over to read scenes as they were being written- including Jack Halpin, Christine Goodman, Heather McAllister, and Tim McCracken.  I told Tim Errickson about the idea.  He had directed a production of Vanya at Expanded Arts in which I played Astrov, and I knew he would dig it.  He did, and soon there was a reading as part of Boomerang Theatre’s First Flight, and it felt pretty groovy.  Re-writes were done, and another reading/lab was done up at Lincoln Center, using the talents many fine actors, including Julie Congress and Dan O’Neill.   The next draft was given a reading by BeaconNY Productions, and used such talented wonders as Christopher Grabowski, Tara Falk, and Diane Buglewics Foote.   One of the great joys of writing plays is all the talented artists you get to work with- each with a unique perspective that adds to the soul of the show.  I wrote and re-wrote, and the wrote some more.  Many rewrites- with so much help from Lisa that she became co-author- and it was ready for a full production, which happened in the fall of 2006 as a co-production between the Boomerang Theatre Company and Impetuous Theatre Group, with Jack Halpin, Carrie Brewer,
Reyna de Courcy,
Margaret A. Flanagan,James David Jackson,
Tom Knutson,
Paul Navarra and was directed by Tim Errickson.

In 2009, there was a workshop reading of the play at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, in their Black Swan Lab run by Lue Morgan Douthit with a cast that included Gregory Lingington, Richard Howard, Jeffrey King, Derrick Lee Weeden, Terri McMahon, Vilma Silva, Catherine E. Coulson, Miriam A. Laube, Ryan Anderson and Tyrone Wilson.  In early 2010, a reading was given by the Seattle Playwrights Collective directed by Dan Tarker with Alysha Curry, Gene Thorkidsen, Sherry Narens, Gary Estrada, Griffith Kadiner, Dolores Rodgers, and Richard Hawkin.   Several re-writes came about from those two readings, and the version you have is the latest draft, based on all three productions/workshops.

I would encourage people doing this play to seek the comedy as much as possible.  And look up all the songs they mention in the script.  In this day of the interne, Youtube and Google, it is inexcusable to not research all references in a play. 

Enjoy!