Somerville Bike Garden

Garden Bike, a photo by arthennessey on Flickr.

Out For A Stroll

Out shooting another entry into Lord Somerville's Diary this past weekend.

Rick Santorum's Secretary of Education?

Advice to the Young Actor - Warning To Playwrights

More funny acting advice here.  From the mind of Constantine Ersatz, working from his top secret acting studio in Manhattan.

North Koreans Rock Ah-Ha.... With Accordions

Paula Vogel and Her Student Both Miss The Real Answer

The New York Times covered Paula Vogel's playwriting boot camp that was recently held at Second Stage Theatre.  She holds these informal training seminars around the country, "usually at theaters that are producing her work."

While I don't always agree with her, Vogel can often be a very invigorating champion of the craft and profession, and has also served as a voice against the tendency for theaters to over-develop plays.

Near the end of the article is this exchange with a theater director:.

She encouraged her writers, in their scripts, to consider leaving half a page blank to underscore the importance of wordlessness to directors and actors.

Such a heavy authorial hand drew heated complaints, however, from Nicholas Gray, a young theater director who had been invited by an associate. Mr. Gray railed against lengthy stage directions, saying he crossed them out in scripts before he would begin rehearsals with his actors.

“It’s the playwright being tyrannical over all of the other artists who will ever work on the play,” Mr. Gray said, adding that even “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” would not escape his pen.

His conviction drew out Ms. Vogel’s steely side for a moment — “that idea causes me a great deal of pain,” she said of his editing — before she regained her professorial posture. She said that Eugene O’Neill wrote “Long Day’s Journey” as “a valentine to his wife” and that pauses in the stage action were a way to “slow down the sensation of time.”

“Theater is one of the few places where the rush of time slows down,” she said.

Of course, they are both a "no go" on this boot camp task. I guess I'll sound overly pedantic, but Eugene O'Neill expressly instructed that the play never be produced at all.  I'm glad I get to see it, believe me, but let's remember that we're trampling on the old man's wishes.

He was asked about it by his publisher near the end, and he emphatically reiterated his wishes in a letter:

 "No, I do not want Long Day's Journey Into Night," [It was in a safe at the publisher's headquarters.] he wrote "That, as you know, is to be published twenty-five years after my death—but never produced as a play."

While I really respect the argument Vogel and the student are having, Eugene O'Neill presents some interesting tangents when used as an example, especially when talking about Long Day's Journey.

Maybe, though, it was brought up and just not reported.

Look Back (To 1989) in Anger

Sam Gold's production of John Osborne's angry young cry of a play, Look Back in Anger, has just opened in New York City at the Laura Pels Theater.

We got a look at the play when the Orfeo Group put it on at the Factory Theatre here in Boston back in 2008.  

Here is a video of Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson in the finale of  a 1989 production: