Extra Criticum

Welcome to EXTRA CRITICUM

Extra Criticum is a forum for commentary and dialogue about what's on the minds of artists working in the performing arts. That includes producers, designers, actors, writers, directors... anyone who's had a hand in the creation of theatre, film, opera, dance, music, television, performance art—you name it.

Got a question or a comment for one (or all) of us?
Post it here, in the comments link.

The characters who know too much

Here’s a question for playwrights and screenwriters. It’s become so easy to find the answers to the most esoteric, exotic, and sordid questions, thanks to the Internet and the disappearance of the idea that anything is off limits in polite society. So is it becoming more awkward to convey information to a theater or movie audience by having a seemingly intelligent character ask dumb questions?

I ask because I just started watching the TV series Damages (only two episodes so far, so I don’t yet know if I like it or will ultimately find the thriller spin on The Devil Wears Prada to be a cheat). In one scene, Glenn Close, playing a whip-smart lawyer who’s obviously familiar with the seamiest aspects of human nature, is baffled by a charge on her son’s credit card statement and has to ask her husband what an “outcall” is. She does this even though she’s sitting in her office and could easily Google the term in the unlikely event she’s never heard of it. (You can do it, too. I know damn well that you’re on your computer.)

It's Official. I'm a sap. I love this music video.

Can anyone explain to me why a relatively sophisticated and urbane "artiste" such as moi might actually LOVE this Martina McBride music video?

Worst. Trailer. Ever!

I've been known to do things in the wrong order. Cart before the horse? That's me. It's not always a bad thing, though. Like watching Vendredi Soir (Friday Night) by Claire Denis before watching the trailer in the extras. The film is about a woman who meets a man one evening and finds a deep connection over the course of ten hours or so. One third of the film takes place in a car stuck in Parisian traffic. Another third of the film takes place in the streets of Paris, in a restaurant, and in a cafe, and another third in a hotel room where people who hook up do what people do in a hotel room. But this hook up might just alter the woman's life. For the most part, the score, by Dickon Hinchliffe (Tindersticks), is bitter-sweet, delicate, and intimate, as is the whole film. It's a beautiful work that requires a little patience. That first third, the sitting in a car in traffic part, it really feels like you're sitting in a car in traffic. It's claustrophobic and slow and I was tempted to opt out of the film. But I stuck with it and it pays off when Denis takes us out of that car. Outside the car the couple goes through the stages of a 50 year relationship in sixty minutes of screen time. And the last shot of our heroine is unforgettable. (Sure, it borrows from The 400 Blows, but so what?)

Tell Me A Story: A Q&A with author Amy Friedman v.1

Some of you may recognize Amy Friedman as a frequent commenter here on Extra Criticum. As such, we consider her one of the "family." So when the third in her popular series of Tell Me a Story CDs was recently released, Rolando Teco wanted to be among the first to interview her. Here is part 1 of 2.

It's About Fuckin' Time

I'm sitting in my office at the Dramatists Guild, half-dazed from the heat beating through my window countered with the screams of some Michael Jackson imitator seven floors down on the street level. Half in one world and half in another (my natural state these days), I'm brought back to office-reality when one of our cheery office assistants slides my mail across my desk and announces, "Mail!" (Btw, I find this fascinating. Why announce what's obvious? It's not like you're sliding a pizza or an old boot across my friggin' desk and trying to pass it off as mail.)

Anyway, I'm sifting through my mail -- which generally consists of "you're doing this right" mail, and, "you're doing this wrong, asshole" mail with a few season announcements, show announcements, and gym postcards announcing the end of summer is in sight (really?), and shouldn't I lose the twenty pounds I've been meaning to lose? -- when a brochure catches my eye: the announcement for Playwrights Horizons 2009-10 season.

A pigeon is not a dove. And vice versa.

Last season I did something stupid and enough time has passed that I (and hopefully my board of directors and staff) can laugh at the mistake. A few months ago, it was anything but funny.

There's a scene in a famous opera that I was staging that I'd always thought should start with a flock of doves. It's a symbolic thing... difficult to quite explain but it relates to my thoughts about the character who makes his first entrance on stage, etc. etc.

Notes Or Thoughts

[cross-posted at www.JeremysGreenRoom.com]

Notes are often given to directors and writers. A lot of the time in these notes sessions I find myself saying “what is the problem we’re trying to solve”. This is because a lot of times notes are given as solutions and a lot of times, for whatever reason, the solution is flawed. But that doesn’t negate the underlying problem.

Notes are very useful because they offer multiple perspectives, and they keep you from that problem of not being able to see the forrest for the trees. But writers usually come up with the best solutions for their scripts, and directors usually come up with the best solutions for their productions. I think it is usually preferable to simply present the problem and let the person in charge of that department ask for help, or give them the space to figure out their own solution.

American Priorities?

When you run an opera company in this country, you get used to the threat of having to cancel portions of your season. It happens to the best of us. Fundraising goals aren't reached and you have to move (as gracefully as you can) to Plan B.

But you don't expect to find yourself discussing the cancellation of one of 5 announced operas because the composer who you're bringing over from Europe for the premiere of his new work can't get a visa!

A Total Lack of Irony

Nine years ago I set off for the wilds of Alaska, my first play in hand. I went to the Last Frontier Theatre Conference and had an amazing time. Among the momentous things that happened that week was meeting the estimable Rolando Teco, great friend and collaborator, as well as being the editor of this here online journal.

The play I went with has since been buried under a large rock, but my love of the Conference soldiers on. I recently returned from a week there as a featured artist. And I’m here to tell ya, it’s still pretty great.

Detroit the next artists' mecca? Who woulda thunk it?

In May I posted:  "What city will be the next New York?" and lots of folks joined in a freewheeling speculation as to where artists might next land in light of the mounting impossibility of making ends meet in NYC.

Well, check this out? Courtesy of Thomas Cott's You've Cott Mail:

Run Don't Walk to See BENNY

Last year I had the pleasure of seeing an early workshop of Suzanne Bachner's autobiographical play, Benny. Well, word on the street is, the John Montgomery Theatre Company has revised, reshaped and rehearsed and made it even better -- although when I saw it in its earliest version, it blew me away!

Here's a link to more info. Seriously, this was one of the most surprisingly bold and theatrical new pieces I'd seen in a long time. Check it out at the JMTC website.

Boheme, Rigoletto and Rakes Progress Costumes off to Goodwill

This past weekend was kind of emotional for me and our staff. After years of accumulating some of the most gorgeous costumes -- all designed and built by our fabulous team -- we had to make room in storage for a future. The simple fact is, our offices, rehearsal and shop spaces are all just crowded to maximum capacity.

Sex!

"Extra Criticum is a forum for commentary and dialogue about what's on the minds of artists working in the performing arts." So, what's on my mind? Sex! But I'm supposed to write about film here, so what's a blogger to do? Eureka! Write about sex in films.

"Herb and Dorothy": Adopt Me!

It is easy to sit back and enjoy Herb and Dorothy, the documentary about the Vogels, as a portrait of a couple of New York City characters, the kind Joseph Mitchell wrote about. They're elderly, they dress funny, they have New York accents, they live in a cluttered one-bedroom, rent-controlled apartment with cats and turtles, and they have a secret life the sharpest What's My Line? panel would never discover. You wouldn't know it from the look of them, but this cute man (who never finished high school) and woman (a librarian) are obsessed with collecting art, mostly the work of post Pop New York artists. They used his modest post office salary to buy art and her city government salary to pay the bills, and thanks to an intuitive and profound understanding of what is good and what will be considered good in the future, the Vogels amassed what is probably the most important private art collection from that era in the country.