Good weekend for theater

I may have to break my usual rule and write a review for "The Watch List" in my blog. It's a new work and it deserves to get attention. So I'm going to put some thought into it and once I get my other assignments done for the week, I'll turn back to "The Watch List" and write about it.

I also saw "Opal's Husband" with Jane and Mark Zussman, Winifred Olds, Dan Pappas, and Jan Ross in it on Saturday night. I sat at a table with the director's parents who were quite proud of the cute show that their daughter directed.

Earlier tonight I saw a wonderful production of "The Ingham County Spelling Bee" at the Ruhala Center. It was a cast of exceedingly talented performers.

Directors and Editors

Writers are told that when they fall in love with a sentence that they've written--when they think it is just the greatest thing ever, they should get rid of it. Sounds harsh, but writers with that kind of discipline are far more readable and effective than those who aren't. Granted, it often takes a good editor to kill the sentence that the writer is in love with.

There is a parallel to this in acting. Theater needs strong directors to sometimes tell the actor to get rid of something that the actor thinks is awesome.

Weekend of Theater

In less than an hour I'll be heading out for the start of what I expect to be a wonderful weekend of theater.

Tonight I'm going to "The Watch List" at Riverwalk. On Saturday, I'll be at Starlight Dinner Theater's "Opal's Husband," and on Sunday I'll see the musical theater ensemble at the Ruhala Center perform "The 25th Annual Ingham County Spelling Bee."

Daily post

I said I would post every day for a week, so here is today's post.

Eventually, I will get embarrassed if my blog entries continue to say nothing. Hopefully that will inspire me to create better content and not just stop writing here.

Monday Movie Musings

Yesterday was the Oscar Awards ceremony. This statement will surprise no one.

We didn't watch it for a couple reasons. One, we haven't a television. Two, with our car broken down, we couldn't get to any of the various Oscar parties taking place around town.

I can't say that I minded missing it the way I minded missing the Olympics. Primarily this is because I see so very few movies. As a theater critic, I see a lot of plays. When I talk about the "theater," I'm talking about what happens on the stage, not the screen. Given that I also have a day job, a family, friends, and more than a few hobbies, this doesn't leave much time for movies. This year, when I've missed many of the plays that I wanted to see, movies were an even lower priority.

Of the few movies that I did see (and you should take "few" literally), none of them were likely to be nominated for an award. I have fairly plebeian tastes in movies. If I'm going to go to the theater, I'm going to go see something that I can't see on stage since I far prefer the live medium to the two-dimensionality, distance, and static nature of movies. I prefer to have my actors life-size rather than bigger than life on the silver screen or in miniature on the television.

This means most of what I watch is animated. Yes, I could give you the excuse that I'm a mom and I do it for family reasons, but really, it's because I like animated movies. One of my favorite movies of all time is still Disney's Mulan.

Feeding into this was that I was raised a Nazarene at a time when Nazarenes didn't go to movies. While my parents never enforced this--preferring instead that I come to a decision on my own--as I became more active in the church, I saw movies less and less. By the time I reached high school, I had given up going to movies entirely. During my first two years of college, going to a movie could have gotten me expelled.

While that restriction has long since been lifted, movies never became a habit for me or even something that I typically think of when pondering entertainment options.

Nothing profound

I have nothing profound to say today.

I realize I needn't be profound in order to write a blog entry, but there is a certain amount of internal pressure. If you take the time to find my blog and read it, then I want it to be worth your time.

However, I also want to form the habit of writing on a regular basis in part because that triggers me thinking about entries on a regular basis so that when I do sit down to type them out, it is a quick process.

I will share a few random quotes--not necessarily favorites, just ones germain to the topic of theater:

"I regard the theater as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being."

--Oscar Wilde

"I have a terrible feeling that, because I am wearing a white beard and am sitting in the back of the theater, you expect me to tell you the truth about something. These are the cheap seats, not Mount Sinai."

--Orson Welles

"It is one of the tragic ironies of the theater that only one man in it can count on steady work--the night watchman."

--Tallulah Bankhead

(Except now most theaters have replaced that person with an alarm system.)

"All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theater live. That's why it persists."

--Stephen Sondheim

"The reason why I hate working in theater is the tedium of memorization. But once that is done, then you feast on this never-ending meal. If you play it correctly, every night is fraught with very high stakes that are difficult to find in everyday life."

--Christopher Meloni

Secondary School Drama

Oops! I haven't gone to bed yet, so I'm hoping this can still count as Saturday's post.

If you are involved in Lansing-area high school or middle school drama and your school is doing a spring play or musical--please contact me in the next week. I'll also be reaching out to the individual schools, but contact information can change. I'll soon be working on a spring overview article about what all the schools in the area are doing.

Linkety link

I was hoping tonight to write about "The Watch List," an original new work by Eric Dawe that is having its premiere at Riverwalk Theater tonight. Well, actually, I did already write about it in this week's column. But that was a preview. I was going to see the show tonight.

Our car, though, had other ideas. So while Dominic is off at Boy Scout camp for the weekend, Richard and I are stuck at home without transportation (which is not, all things considered, anything to complain about!). It does, though, leave me without a topic for tonight's blog.

Given that, I'm going to share some links that I've been lapse in talking about.

First, remember the press release I shared awhile ago about the critics' panel I participated in? That was an event (in January) that went quite well. I did feel a little out of my league with the high quality of critics represented by my colleagues, but it was an honor and a pleasure to participate. You can listen to the podcasts of the event here--Episodes 7 & 8 (yes, we were a long-winded bunch).

Also, I'm now joining Jim Fordyce every Thursday at 5 p.m. on MIEntertainment radio. It's a streaming station that you can get on your computer, smart phone, or any Internet-capable radio or iPod. Click to listen to the station at TalkLansing.net.

And, of course, you can read my weekly Lansing State Journal columns about a wide variety of performing arts on this page every Thursday.

I also reviewed Icarus Falling's Power Plays by Elaine May and Allan Arkin for Michigan Entertainment.

Did I mention in this blog that I've joined the reviewing team at Encore Michigan? I think I did--in the post where I was talking about "The Smell of the Kill." The next show I'm reviewing for them is Meadowbrook's "Enchanted April." It opens the same weekend that that show opens at Lansing's Riverwalk Theater. I'm looking forward to comparing the two.

That's a wrap for tonight. I'm sure in the next 24 hours I'll manage to think of something else to write about. Stay warm, everyone.

Forming a habit

For the next week, I am going to write a blog entry every day. Even if they are just this short.

Likes and Dislikes

I will confess--I like theater that makes me think.

Yes, I absolutely expect to be entertained when I go to the theater, however, that is only one of many expectations that I have. I also want to be engaged.

There are many ways to engage a person and each person is going to find different things engaging. For myself, I want my brain to be engaged. If you can engage my emotions, that's a plus too. For me, a fine night at the theater is when I've found myself presented with ideas that I have to wrestle with or am given a new perspective on a familiar issue. I like plays that continue to unfold after I've left the theater, forcing me to continue to examine layer after layer. I'm especially fond of shows where there aren't clear-cut answers and I am left pondering and arguing more than one side of something.

Notice those past three paragraphs have a whole lot of the word "I" in there. It's intentional. Nothing in those paragraphs say "this is what makes good theater" or "this is what art is." Rather, they state what my personal preferences are. When I am in the role of critic, it is, quite frankly, irrelevant what I like or dislike or what my preferences are. Why should any of my readers care whether I like a show or not?

My Personal Opinion? Why would you care?

"Isn't that the point of a review? It's an opinion, isn't it?" you might ask. (Or maybe you wouldn't, but indulge me a moment, please).

I would argue no. I mean, yes, it's an opinion and an expression of subjective criteria. But whether I liked it is NOT the point of the review. The point of a review is whether you, the reader, would like it. Most likely, you and I have different tastes in at least some aspects of theater. My telling you I like or don't like a show gives you no information on whether or not you would like or dislike it.

While a review expresses opinion, that opinion should be supported by specific observations--observations that can help you to judge for yourself whether you liked or disliked a show. I may hate farces (I don't, but let's pretend for the sake of argument that I do) and you may love them. If I'm reviewing a farce, I shouldn't be complaining that the acting was over the top or the situations unrealistic. Rather, I should be critiquing whether the play lived up to the conventions of a farce or, if it broke those conventions, whether the choices were effective for the genre and for the purpose of the play. If I've written the review well, the reader really shouldn't know whether I liked the show or not.

I've found that I rarely give a direct answer to the question, "Did you like the show?" More often than not, I'll give some specific reply about what worked or didn't work in a show rather than express my personal pleasure or displeasure--that is, if I'm talking to someone in a professional context.

To be honest, it is the elements of a show that I find far more fascinating to talk about anyway. To say I "liked" or "disliked" it seems so final, so pat. It lumps everything I've just experienced into a single word. Most plays deserve far more than that. They deserve to be heard, to be listened to, to be discussed.