By the end of National Playwriting Month, I will hate myself, the tattered remains of The Aladdin Play, and everyone involved in this effort.
PS: No Norwegians tonight! As if you couldn’t guess. Happy Halloween!
The run ended. Can we now stop talking about George Hunka’s play?
For those that missed In Public, George has generously put a PDF copy of his play online. I applauded this move the last time he did this. Again, I encourage all other playwrights to put their work online.
In other news, don’t overthink Michael Feingold’s theatre column from last week. Some plays send Feingold into paragraphs of endless nostalgia. (The collective artistic spark of New York City is gone!) Others cause him to get political. (How can you write a play so trifling when people are dying in Iraq?) But as several have pointed out, Feingold forgot to write anything of substance about the two plays he meant to pull into this vortex of futility.
But that doesn’t make him wrong. Feingold is beginning to doubt theatre’s ability to change the world. You can have one hundred Evil Dead musicals, or a thousand bootstrap theatre companies with cute names like “Bear Eats Monkey.†But to earn their reputation as theatre, these companies and their work have to change the world.
Theatre rarely does that now. It hasn’t given the world a Mrs. Malaprop or even a “One Night In Bangkok†in a long time. I honestly believe that a play that doesn’t change the English language or spawn a pop single is a play not worth performing.
Impact is everything.
Bonus: What did I think about the script for In Public? Highlight the selection to find out. How can you write a play so trifling when people are dying in Iraq?
Enough about me: I forgot to write about playwright Ken Urban and his play I ♥ Kant, which closed in New York almost a month ago.
I left some of my thoughts with James Comtois on his weblog. Other thoughts? None so nice: I ♥ Kant confirmed my suspicion that just saying the name “Mac Wellman†means you’re allowed to use whatever slapdash theatrical devices you like. Direct address? Third person? Fourth-wall jokes? All Wellman-approved!
I also found this Post-It note I must have written during the train ride home, concerning an early monologue by the very young actress Kate Downing as the character Maureen, as she defends an album by the Rolling Stones:
It’s weird hearing a girl talk about Emotional Rescue when she looks younger than Dirty Work.
I was born like two Rolling Stones albums before her!
Believe me officer, if I’d have known I never would have gotten her ya-yas out.