Dialogue with a Vagina Monologue (Chapter I)

Dialogue with a Vagina Monologue (Chapter I)

Over the past year, the members of the LMDA List Serv have compiled on average almost one play list per week. Although most lists are never actually listed on the official Play Lists reference page, the dramaturgs and other theatre people on the list obviously relish this particular task. There have been some seemingly obscure lists such as “Plays about Rural Gay/Lesbian/Transgendered People” and highly opinionative lists “Most important (best?) contemporary American and British plays since 1990 (hey! what about…

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PostPube at YouTube

PostPube at YouTube

In the ’90s the narratives of the teenagers’ adventures were broken up by short breaks in which Beavis and Butt-Head watched music videos and made fun of them. Today, post-pubescents are at YouTube watching the bootleg video of Saddam’s hanging. This is the first real snuff film Beavis and Butt-Head have been “authorized” to view so we shouldn’t expect much from their critique. Butt-Head: “Whoa! Those dudes with black hoods are cool!” Beavis: “Yeah, eh heh heh, they’re those Ku…

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Godfathers of Soul

Godfathers of Soul

James Brown, President Gerald Ford, President Saddam Hussein. Individual legacies added/subtracted becoming collective history. Or Motown. Legacy of a city, but also legacy of a certain time in America that is no more. Cars and music. Once defining our individuality and freedom. Teenagers at lover’s lane. Get on up, like a sex machine. But now the SUV, especially the Hummer (No mere metaphor. Here it’s an SUV; over there it’s a war vehicle). Cars as emblem of our conspicuous consumption…

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The Contra-Review and the New TheatreTalk

The Contra-Review and the New TheatreTalk

As difficult as it is today to differentiate the alternative from the mainstream in theatre culture, so too is the difficulty in attempting to classify the various modes of writing being used to represent theatre now that the blogosphere has brought the internet into a new age. George Hunka misdirected his fellow theatre bloggers with the abstract he selected from Eric Bentley’s Thalia Prize speech in his post titled “No Critics, No Directors Either”. As a result Isaac Butler, MattJ,…

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It’s Thursday, right?

It’s Thursday, right?

Some friends, including the chef, for our Thanksgiving dinner tonight are vegetarian. Rocky: Listen, I don’t want no turkey anyway, ya know. Adrian: But it was Thanksgiving. Rocky: It was what? Adrian: It was Thanksgiving. Rocky: Yeah, to you, but to me, it’s Thursday, right?

American Idolatry

American Idolatry

Drawing for The Heart, The Pen, And The Page – (c) 2004 Charles Vincent The plan was that no matter what I did, how busy I was, what other commitments I had, I would write a play a day, every single day for a year. It would be about being present and being committed to the artistic process every single day, regardless of the “weather.” It became a daily meditation, a daily prayer celebrating the rich and strange process of…

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WordPlays:365 Days/365 Ways to No Box Office

WordPlays:365 Days/365 Ways to No Box Office

The NO BOX OFFICE is the most radical notion in the 365 Days/365 Plays project. In NYC and LA, Actors Equity allows token payments to actors in showcase and 99 seat production contracts. So actors can work in similar spirit to the dollar a day token royalty the playwright receives. I’m interested in how theaters are paying Equity actors working elsewhere in the country on this project. I expect circumvention. Likewise on the NO BOX OFFICE restriction. The Foundry Theatre…

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Cap’n Beady Eyes in the Blogosphere

Cap’n Beady Eyes in the Blogosphere

The patronizing advice that Lyn Gardner dispenses to young theatre companies in her Guardian post could be better applied as a directive to her own writing. She needs to “think harder and be more self-critical” about her writing as it moves from print into the blogosphere. Apparently oblivious even of the venue in which she is writing, she totes out that old print publishing truism that “reviewing space comes at a premium” when cautioning young theatre companies from inviting her…

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Vote For Me

Vote For Me

I have never voted in my life so today is a day where I need to stay away from many of my friends. The sentiment and non-action known as “Get out the vote” annoys me but maybe it’s a sign of my maturity that I no longer pick fights with my friends over it. Unlike me, many of the theatre bloggers seem to be voting today. Angry White Guy’s message is short but sweet “No fucking around. Find the time…

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Trick or Treat,

Trick or Treat,

“Money or Eats” â„¢ At Dramaturgy.net there is a link to the RENT Lawsuit Transcripts and to an article on August 26, 1998 in Talkin’ Broadway about the case being closed. I am not sure about “the industry” but most people I know working in theatre would find this statement in the article more than mere hyperbole. Not only was Lynn Thomson never called “the Rosa Parks of the theatre industry”, most would find the analogy itself offensive. The heirs…

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Fatboy Slim Theatre

Fatboy Slim Theatre

It is mostly sentiment to say our art is gift. More honestly, we would recognize that our art is at least as complex as our lives are. We barter continually for our daily existence. Each of us are at least partial commodity in that way. The better part of our being (often termed art or love) sometimes struggles to be free of that condition. Understanding that our art is as we ourselves are, both gift and commodity, we can easier…

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Leap of Faith

Leap of Faith

I keep the Kierkegaard anthology bookmarked at Fear and Trembling where he explains the “man of faith.” When Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia on the command from the Delphi Oracle, and for the good of the nation, he is acting on a high moral plane, but he’s not a man of faith. That’s because all of Greece listens to the same such words from on high. Agamemnon is not alone; he has the whole nation agreeing his sacrifice is righteous….

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Richard Foreman’s Negative Capability

Richard Foreman’s Negative Capability

What I remember most about the Soho loft where I interviewed Richard Foreman was its vast library. Racks upon racks of books dominate the living space. I cannot think of another contemporary playwright who better exemplifies what it means to live “a life of the mind,” so his living loft library seemed the perfect complement to Foreman’s work home at his theatre space in the East Village. In this 2003 interview he was despondent over the value of his theatre…

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In Perpetuity

In Perpetuity

The Great Law of Peace was the constitution that united the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. This confederacy and its laws is said to have inspired Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine in the writing of the United States Constitution. One of the precepts of the Great Law of Peace was referred to as the Seventh Generation. This principle instructs chiefs to consider the impact of their decisions on the seventh generation to come. Theatre is an art form that…

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Blame Game

Blame Game

Lucky for the students at Juilliard that Christopher Durang and Marsha Norman are teaching playwriting and not investigative journalism. This is second time in as many months they have been perpetrators in playwright boycotts and attacks against individuals innocent of the crimes of which they were accused. First Hedy Weiss and now the O’Neill Playwrights Conference. Durang and Norman have co-chaired the Playwriting Program at Juilliard since 1994 and their recent letter to their former students begins with “Dear Julliard…

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Playwrights Can’t Scream

Playwrights Can’t Scream

Artaud insisted that the playwright or the text should not be the final authority in the collaborative process. As Derrida highlights in his essays on Artaud, the essence of his stance was against the actors’ presence being subservient to the prompter’s (text) presence. The prompter is even more insidious than just that sneaky little whisperer in his dark dank box off stage but is attached directly to the ears of the actor.  “Good inspiration is the spirit-breath [souffle] of life,…

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Belated Portrait for the Theatre of Cruelty

Belated Portrait for the Theatre of Cruelty

Drawing on Artaud for inspiration is one thing but to actually produce a work of his is quite another. Producing To Have Done with the Judgment of God has proved a daunting exploration. Thieves Theatre has always had it “in the works” and then “on the back burner” and then in the forefront again. The aspiration toward this non-production has inspired and informed our other productions for at least ten years now. Susan Sontag explains how many artists have read/practiced…

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Rain Dog Dance

Rain Dog Dance

Much of Artaud’s theory on theatre can be classified as the dramaturgy of the actor. It’s easy to see why Butoh originator Hijikata found a shared sensibility and stratagem for performance in Artaud’s writings. One of his prized possessions was the recorded copy of Artaud’s radio broadcast. This tape of To Have Done With The Judgement Of God was played when Hijikata choreographed Min Tanaka in a performance entitled Ren-ai Butoh-ha Teiso (Foundation of the Dance of Love). To work…

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To Have Done with the Judgments on Artaud

To Have Done with the Judgments on Artaud

Alison Croggon at theatre notes has obviously read more criticisms on Artaud than actual writings by Artaud. She parrots the negative critiques that have always been attached to this singularly important theatre theorist. So nothing new in her attempt to marginalize Artaudian theatre by classifying it to the experience of the lunatic asylum, war zone and concentration camp. However, Alison extends this old criticism to new a level by outrageously and unconscionably comparing Artaud to violent terrorist killers Osama bin…

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Artaud’s Granddaughter

Artaud’s Granddaughter

Twenty years ago, I drove a 450cc Honda motorcycle into the Sierra Madre Mountains in search of Antonin Artaud’s granddaughter. My forehead became blistered with sunburn during the long trip from Chicago so I tore up a white pillowcase I had taken from an El Paso motel room, using it as a protective and medicinal bandanna. The 3 gallon motorcycle gas tank caused constant adventure because of the distance between petrol stations in Mexico. So eventually I found myself out…

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