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2001-06-29 - 3:46 p.m. Last night I went to Brooklyn for the first time in a year, I think. I went to see a show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with a great friend of mine. We saw MOST of a production of “Quartett” by Heiner Muller. I say most because with 45 minutes left in the show (when we realized there was no intermission), we followed the lead of about 30 other audience members, including the critic for the NY Daily News, and tip-toed out the door and RAN out of the theater. It was probably the worst thing I’ve seen on a stage since I was four years old and my mom took me to see “A Chorus Line”. Not that “A Chorus Line” was all that bad, but I compare it to last night’s theater homicide because last night I was about as confused as that young theatergoer who asked her mother “when does the play start?” I don’t know that much about Muller’s work – just that he’s abstract, morose, and too pretentious for his own good. From what I could understand from the text, which was interesting in some places, the play was about stereotypical sexual relations between men and women. The woman is being subjected to the man against her will, poor woman, blah blah blah. There was gender role reversal as well, but I’m not sure if that was at the director’s discretion or not. It was a very sexually charged play – the female lead (who I actually liked somewhat) touched herself, etc., but it really didn’t fit for some reason. I think it was because the attitude of the actors and the direction was so high-falutent and pretentious that as an audience member you were supposed to “get” all the hidden symbolism, etc. behind the actors’ every move. I felt like I was trapped in a SoHo art gallery at an opening of a show where the “art” was a series of blank canvases and the attendees were buying them up like they were original Michelangelo’s or something. The most annoying aspect of this play were two background characters which, I can only guess, were supposed to be representing the “common folk”, since the leads were obviously from the upper class. These background idiots spent the duration of the play running around dancing with very deliberate moves, echoing parts of the dialogue, which was meant to be “haunting”, but was only “stupid”. The costumes, the set, the lighting, etc., was all good—the space is amazing. But I can’t believe that I actually walked out of a play. I’ve never done that before. The happiest part of the evening for me was when I wanted to laugh at a particularly BAD line delivery, but held it in, in respect for the actors—and about 20 people started laughing out loud. I wanted to lean over to my friend (who was reviewing it for Backstage) and ask, “Are we supposed to be laughing at this?” I felt so bad for the actors who must have seen the constant trickle of escaping audience members and the muffled guffaws during “dramatic” moments. But, it’s their fault for agreeing to follow the direction of an obviously full-of-herself director. Even the director’s notes in the playbill were worthy of a “gong” on the “Gong Show”: “…A text. To put on stage—rather, to put on flesh, to put on the body, to put into crisis. To pass from the text to the flesh, to dare this transgression of taboos…” GONG. Please…the whole essay made me feel like I was reading a thesis written by an overachieving drama student who was a product of NYC Private School and the acting program at Tisch. Crap. I did have a lovely time hanging out with my friend. We always have great conversations about anything and everything. He’s inspired me to try my hand at freelance writing while I look for a job. We’ll see what happens. God knows I have all the time in the world now J. Wednesday night I went to dinner on the Upper Westside with another friend and saw an old friend from highschool randomly on the street. Her father was my basketball coach in 4th and 5th grade. She’s getting married—I met her fiancé as well. It was a shock of sorts, mainly because she is one of the first of my friends to get married—and the first of my friends’ “fiancés” that I’ve met. I offered my congratulations on the “news”, etc. He barely said a word – seemed like he was shell-shocked or something. It was very scary—when I was on my way home from dinner and began to think about my friend, etc., I could picture her life as it laid in front of her. She had graduated a great school, went into finance, met someone, moved in with him on the Upper Westside, got engaged, etc. I have this picture of her life on this train track headed straight for the suburbs. Who knows—I don’t know the details of her life, but I just had this image of her with 2.5 kids and a backyard, a nanny and two SUV’s flash through my head. And to quote Seinfeld (who isn’t my favorite comedian, but it fits in this case), “Not that there’s anything WRONG with that”. Well, I’m off to the gym—I’m making sure that I get out of my house at least once during the daylight.
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