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This weekend I saw two plays in as many days. The final night for both performances, and both Deedi Dearest and Not A Hooker both invited me to tag along to the cast party thing afterward, usually found at the nearest watering hole.
DD's play was a Second City production, a student-level thing with a theme very similar to some video shorts I made in my senior year in high school. Sketch comedy format, which always struck me as the Dim Sum of playwriting. There were a few musical numbers, and the theme song struck a particular chord for me after all these conversations with Her about how I always complain that "no one can understand what I'm going through. Wah, wah, wah!" (as she puts it). The chorus went like this:
You think you've got it bad, I've got it worse
Your lives are blessed, mine's nothing but a curse
NAH's play, on the other hand, was more exploratory, more mixed media, and perversely, a bigger budget performance (perverse b/c it was funded out of pocket). It explored sleep, coma, living will issues (briefly), insomnia, and the death penalty. It was far more linear than the DD's play, in the sense that each scene progressed from the one preceding it, and built to form something of a single story. I'd read the script when they first started, and had been vaguely impressed by it. Clearly the piece was driven by it's special effects because I was blown away when I saw it, even though I knew the entire story. The only real surprise was how quietly and intricately NAH had managed to weave in the Shaivo case's obvious connection to the central theme without letting it overshadow.
Afterwards, while we're all sitting at the bar, I tried to strike up various conversations with people. I don't really know how well I did, but when I got home, I wrote this down in my paper journal:
Hi, I'm a neurotic mess who is incapable of discussing anything but himself.
But looking back on it, I kind of feel like I was only being harsh to myself because I'm used to it. I think I did okay. I think I'm learning how to talk to people without my Party Man Mask on all the time. Which is kinda sad in itself, because I really liked that gruff, hearty, loud and embracing kitchen wanderer.
DD's play was a Second City production, a student-level thing with a theme very similar to some video shorts I made in my senior year in high school. Sketch comedy format, which always struck me as the Dim Sum of playwriting. There were a few musical numbers, and the theme song struck a particular chord for me after all these conversations with Her about how I always complain that "no one can understand what I'm going through. Wah, wah, wah!" (as she puts it). The chorus went like this:
You think you've got it bad, I've got it worse
Your lives are blessed, mine's nothing but a curse
NAH's play, on the other hand, was more exploratory, more mixed media, and perversely, a bigger budget performance (perverse b/c it was funded out of pocket). It explored sleep, coma, living will issues (briefly), insomnia, and the death penalty. It was far more linear than the DD's play, in the sense that each scene progressed from the one preceding it, and built to form something of a single story. I'd read the script when they first started, and had been vaguely impressed by it. Clearly the piece was driven by it's special effects because I was blown away when I saw it, even though I knew the entire story. The only real surprise was how quietly and intricately NAH had managed to weave in the Shaivo case's obvious connection to the central theme without letting it overshadow.
Afterwards, while we're all sitting at the bar, I tried to strike up various conversations with people. I don't really know how well I did, but when I got home, I wrote this down in my paper journal:
Hi, I'm a neurotic mess who is incapable of discussing anything but himself.
But looking back on it, I kind of feel like I was only being harsh to myself because I'm used to it. I think I did okay. I think I'm learning how to talk to people without my Party Man Mask on all the time. Which is kinda sad in itself, because I really liked that gruff, hearty, loud and embracing kitchen wanderer.
