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June 27, 2005
Hiroshima
So we started working on A Thousand Cranes today, and I want to state right here, right now, for the record, that I don't know how I'm going to survive this. Because it is unspeakably horrifying. Why and how a group of human beings decided to put another group of human beings through such an experience is completely beyond my comprehension. Completely.
I don't understand hatred and I don't understand war and I don't understand how that sort of decision could ever be justifiable.
The play itself is a good play, well crafted and tight. But I cried three times this morning during rehearsal. Once for each time we read through the play and once when the director read the picture book Sadako to us. Maybe by the time we open I will be so numb to its truths that I can speak my final lines without weeping. But I don't see how.
Posted by sally at 10:46 PM
June 26, 2005
Chick Night
POW! opened yesterday morning. A good crowd, more adults than kids, interestingly, but great reactions. A couple of people said it was the best thing they've seen in association with the university in several years.
And last night was chick night aka "Girly Movie Night" at Heather, Sara and Maggie's. They have a GREAT BIG house, and it was perfect. Three sofas and a chair in the living room, and about 30 dvd's to choose from. We watched Mean Girls, followed by Strictly Ballroom, followed by Bend It Like Beckham. They were planning on watching something else when I left, but my eyeballs were pretty square by then, so I took my movies and went home.
Lots of mimosas and good snacks and chatty conversation. And because I felt like making it an occasion, I went to the dollar store and found these really cute picture frames shaped like flip-flops. I bought a whole bunch and took them with me as party favors. They were very popular. I bought a bunch more for my sister-in-law's birthday (but don't tell her) because she's kind of flip-flop obsessed.
I didn't realize I needed something like that (the party, not the obsession or the picture frames) until this morning, when I woke up feeling lighter than I had in a while. I had been spending my time off away from everybody, sort of hiding in the house and venturing out into the yard. But today, I felt like getting some stuff done rather than just skulking about the living room and lurking on the couch with a book. I felt as though I'd released something, let it go. Maybe it was just that I'd been in the company of women (and a trio of gay men) for a good period of time. That does feed some need in me.
I really do prefer hanging out with the guys when all is said and done. I just love men. But an evening with the chicas is one of those special and healing occasions. When we can be bawdy and outrageous and giggly and silly. When we can have conversations like, "Okay. If you could sleep with anyone in the company, no strings attached, who would you sleep with?" which was a conversation held on the very first chick night I ever attended, ten years ago this summer. The woman who asked that question was horrified when I listed practically every male in the group.
She had really asked it solely so she could admit to having a huge crush on one of the happily married members of the company because she was married herself and felt guilty about the whole idea (I get this now, but I was younger then in so many ways), but I took her seriously and answered the question honestly. I mean, come on, she did say "no strings attached." And it was a fantasy thing, I didn't actually have sex with every male in the company that summer. I didn't even pursue it.
Anyhow, I love the way women open up to each other when men aren't around. When we don't have to behave, when we don't have to impress anyone or compete for attention/affection/approval. When there's no "womanly" contest going on. Unless we're alone with our partners or among very good friends, I suspect most heterosexual women have a different face in mixed company than they do when they're "with the girls." As soon as another woman comes along, the relationships shift. It's certainly what I've noted from both observation and personal experience. It's not that we're no longer being ourselves, it's that a part of ourselves is suddenly hidden, protected behind a very well-constructed and subtle wall. Unless no men are present. Or at least, no potentially available men.
I don't know whether the mask we wear in front of men is a female thing, a gender-identity thing, a potential partner thing, or a culture thing. I do know it's something we learn at a very early age. So early and so subtly that it seems instinctive.
Posted by sally at 10:26 PM
June 23, 2005
Ugh
I am fat. Fat fat fatfatfat. And my hair color makes me look old. But I am old. Or getting there, anyway. Old and fat. And I'm not even forty yet.
Posted by sally at 11:37 PM | Comments (1)
June 22, 2005
Long Overdue Pix
Graduation Photos! Yay! Well, one graduation photo. Of Yo, Heather and me, taken by Yo's man. Can you tell I had a fever? The lovely brown "chokers" are our much-anticipated MFA hoods. We had quite a struggle to figure out how to wear them correctly.
Also, one of the MFA Macbeth chicks in full MacB makeup and gear. I am wearing every costume piece I possessed for the show except for the bloody beads that attached to the crown for the final scene.
Posted by sally at 01:51 PM
June 18, 2005
Saturday Morning Photo Update
I am aware of my shortcomings. I know that I have a lot to say about EVERYTHING, leaving my blog filled with blocks and blocks of dull, grey text. In an effort to render my life more colorful (as seen from the outside), I offer these scenes from my life. (All photographs taken by me sometime in the last week unless otherwise noted.)
Front Yard Then (May 2003)
Yes, that is a sculpted juniper bush on the far left side of the picture. No, I don't know why the former owner thought it was a good idea.
Front Yard Now (June 2005)
Please note the complete absence of juniper bushes and red lava rock. They were the first things to go. I did save the little spruce and the rosebush by the front porch. (Which exploded with canes and flowers as soon as I started watering and fertilizing it. It's only 2 years older in this picture than it was in the before photo.)
Sleeping In
(Taken by Dave as I cannot be in two places at once.)
Allium Bulgaricum
Seeking Illumination
Posted by sally at 10:12 AM
Guilty Pleasures
I have a confession to make. When I go to the gym, I take my headphones and watch whatever reality show I can find. I have seen Celebrity Fit Club, the Surreal Life 4, and Strip Search as part of my workouts. I wish Kept was airing at a doable time. That or Hogan Knows Best. I can't help myself, it's like watching a train wreck. Who knew people could be so strange.
I think it's actually good for me because I work so hard while I'm watching. The time just flies by when those shows are on, and I don't even think about the work I'm doing. I can actually get through 20 minutes on the stairmaster if a good episode is airing.
Today, it was two episodes of 100 Greatest Kid Stars. I actually did extra time on the elliptical trainer so I could find out where Peter Billingsley is now.
Mind you, it's the only time I let myself watch these things.
Posted by sally at 12:06 AM
June 16, 2005
Compost
A couple of weeks ago, we (along with everyone else in Moscow, as near as I can tell) received a book in the mail called National Sunday Law. According to the blurb on the back cover, "A stupendous crisis awaits us. The book you have in hand takes you behind the scenes and explores the shocking 'Who', 'How', and 'When'." It has chapters with titles like, "The Beast Identified," "Dynamite," "The MARK of the Beast," and "The Global Conflict."
From what I can decipher and tease out of the drivel inside, it's about a gigantic conspiracy by the Government to control things by changing the sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, which will then lead to Armageddon. I'm used to conspiracy theorists and religious wackos, living as I do in northern Idaho, but this one caught me off guard. I mean, with all of the information we have at our fingertips to disprove this sort of theory, someone wrote an entire book on how our right to worship on the day of our choice is about to be taken away from us. (Besides which, I suspect a large chunk of the target audience is already worshipping on Sunday, so I'm not sure how the argument affects them.)
Actually, I'm pretty sure that Congress is too busy cutting education and Public Broadcasting funding and infringing on basic individual rights while making choices to poison the earth, water, and air around us for the sake of extra cash to try to enforce religion. Besides, they're sneakier than that. If you're going to have a conspiracy theory, at least make it believable.
I'm not even all that sure what the author was trying to say. It was pretty standard freak rant in a poorly-designed book, including hard to decipher tables and lines like, "Can you imagine Christians killing other Christians?! A horrible thought." Um. The fact that you're only concerned about the killing of, "other Christians," rather than all the other people being killed in this world worries me a great deal more than the massacres alleged in the book.
I only write about this today because I rediscovered the book on the kitchen counter this morning. (Dave had asked me to save it for him so he could see it too.) So I did what I had intended to do with the book all along. I tore off the covers and the spine and composted the pages. Isn't that really the best use of bullshit?
Posted by sally at 08:29 PM | Comments (2)
June 13, 2005
Things Really Have Changed
Thank goodness for photographic evidence. Otherwise, I would feel as though I'd got nothing done.
This is a picture of our backyard taken during the pre-purchase inspection. (Technically, it wasn't our backyard yet.)
If you look really closely, you can see the scary vine and chain-link fence combo along the outside of the porch, as well as the bareness of the porch and house flowerbeds. I think each of them had two pansy plants when we bought the house.
This is what it looks like now.
I do much of my veggie gardening in pots. I was about to explain why, but now I can't remember. To save more space for things like flowers and shrubs, I guess.
Dave and I built the "character patio" along the fence in a weekend. He did the actual building of the patio part, I did the digging up of sod beforehand and planting everything around it afterward part. And prior to that, I cut down all of the shrubs along the fence and he pulled up the stumps. So it's definitely been a joint project.
In other news, POW! is getting to be a lot of fun. I'm enjoying acting like I haven't in years. We got to rehearse in our costumes last Friday, and they added so much to the characters. I was supposed to be in the final workshop preparation session this morning, but the facilitator's little girl is really sick, so it was cancelled. I hope she's better by tomorrow when we actually start presenting the workshops. Otherwise, I don't know what we're going to do, since she's done all of the planning and was supposed to get the majority of the information to us today.
And I spent most of yesterday doing some volunteer voice-over work for a start-up CGI film-production company, Bad Alien Productions. It was a LOT of fun. I so enjoy doing funny voices. And there were moments when everyone in the "studio" (they brought the equipment to us, rather than making us drive to Seattle) had to stop reading to giggle because of the silliness of things. There were moments when you could tell magic was happening.
Posted by sally at 09:56 AM | Comments (2)
June 05, 2005
I Know a Tony Nominee
And may I say, it was just plain weird to see Bart Sher's face as the nominee for best director for The Light in the Piazza. I worked with him ten years ago this summer on the first Shakespeare play in which I had a speaking role. Oddly, the director of 1000 Cranes, which I am doing this summer, was the stage manager for that show. It's a strange, strange life.
Bart is, I must say, an amazing director. He has an incredible vision and I have always remembered his comment on directing Shakespeare, "I look for the problematic moment of the play and work out from there." It explains why every one of his shows I have seen has hung together so beautifully. He is fabulous at creating an entire world on stage. And it's always so pretty. (Which is why The Light in the Piazza won so many design awards. The man has an eye...)
Posted by sally at 11:26 PM | Comments (1)
It's Raining Like Hell Out
Which is, of course, what it should be doing on the only day off for all IRT members. Thank goodness I didn't have any real garden plans for today. Though I must say I don't feel nearly as much like going grocery shopping as I would if it wasn't monsooning out. (Yes, I do know that's not a verb. However, if "scrapbooking" and "gifting" can be acceptable, I think monsooning is also allowable. And much more accurate.)
Every time I come near my desk, I sneeze and my nose starts running. I wonder if that means I should dust...
Think I'll go to the gym (it's a weights day today, yay!) and then settle down to some writing. I haven't written, as in by hand in a notebook just letting things flow out of me, in so very, very long, and this seems like the ideal weather to do it in. Especially since I've once again re-read almost the entire Dorothy Sayers canon.
I should also probably work on my lines so that I am really and truly off book for POW! rehearsal tomorrow. And begin memorizing my lines for 1000 Cranes so I'll be ready when those rehearsals begin the week after next.
Tonight, one of the now second-year MFA's (I'll have to remind her of that) is having a Tony party. I'm planning on going, in order to see everybody, but to be honest, I don't know enough about anything happening in NYC to really care that much about the Tonys. Frankly, I've never thought that those awards were representative of American theatre anyway, considering that, though the Tony people would like us to think otherwise, there's a great deal more going on on American stages than what you can see in New York.
Posted by sally at 12:22 PM
June 01, 2005
So I'm an Idiot...
I didn't have two things scheduled at once. The actor orientation is tomorrow.
Posted by sally at 12:57 PM
Rep Theatre Begins Today
And I am currently scheduled to be in two places at once. Actor orientation from 10-12 and a children's theatre meeting at 11. Yep. It's gonna be one crazy summer.
Posted by sally at 08:51 AM
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