CRAP CRAP CRAP
or everything I don't want to be at 40

August 1, 2011 @ 2pm and 7pm
Cherry Lane Studio
click here for directions

Directed by Richard Caliban

Featuring:
Marlo Marron
Carolyn Popp
Jessica DiDiovanni

Marta's near estrangement from her sister doesn't bother her, until that sister shows up on her door step - bags and daughter in hand - looking for a place to hang her hat, while she finishes her divorce. But sometimes close quarters make for even stranger sisters. Marta and Lou grow back together through the watchful lens of daughter Alexis' camera. Sometimes reflecting, sometimes deflecting and sometimes mimicking, Alexis rides in the way backseat to Marta and Lou's schemes, sarcasm, silence and imaginary boyfriends. Alexis fights against everything she doesn't want to be at 40, with swear jars, crickets and finally public displays of art.

On Endings; and the writing or not writing of them

I finding writing the endings of plays hard. Probably the hardest thing. And my last play was no exception.

When I returned to new york 2 years ago I set myself the goal of writing 1 new play a year. And if I wasn't actively working on the year's play I should work on revisions. The revision part was marginally successful. But this last play folks, it killed my goal. I wrote "end of play" on April 7th. That's 4 months late. Yikes.

And why was that? The ending. I couldn't get it right. Shit, its still not right. I need to do some serious buckling down next week and review my play. Its getting a reading later in the summer (details will follow, that's a threat) I sure as hell better work on it some more.

But to return to my point. Endings. So hard.

I'm a person who's naturally fully of questions. Just ask anyone who spends large amounts of time with me. I just keep asking questions. And I'll admit it, my questions are not always great. I ask just as many inane questions as the next guy. But the questions and their explorations make it easy to write beginnings. Ask a question and then start your play right after the asking happens, and then make it clear what the question is during the first 10 pages. Don't ask it again. Just make it clear.

Other than being full of questions and full of it, I'm full of 'tries' and 'give it a go's' and 'fuck ups'. And all those make it so easy to write the middle of the play. Cause the characters just keep trying to answer that question. And then keep missing the mark. I'm good at that. Missing the mark. It’s easy peasy. Cake on a tray.

But endings. I'm not very good. And I think maybe its because not many things in my life have ended. I'm young. I've quit a few things. I've completed a few things. Seen a few people die. But few things have ended in a climatic way. Few things have resolved dramatically. Maybe I need to infuse more drama in my life.

But truthfully I'd rather have a happy life than by able to write a good ending. both take practice. And like I said before, I'm young, it'll come. As Ernest Hemingway said "In order to write about life, first you must live it!"

and finally "a conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking" Arthur Block

Cherries

Life's just a half empty bowl of cherries.

Lot's of cherries still to eat, but lots already eaten. And some of them we're great and you can't have them back, but some of them were sour and some of them were moldy. But most of them were pretty sweet and that's what keeps you eating cherries.

The Royal Wedding - my 4 pence

Firstly, I would like to point out that I am not just an American obsessed with the Royal Wedding and the romanticism of "becoming a princess". No, I'm a Canadian citizen as well, and the Royal Wedding has read political meaning for me. Technically, the Queen is the head of the Canadian government, and while so so many American find that ever so peculiar, it's the way it is. She's also the Constitutional Monarch of 16 - count 'em - 16 sovereign realm (the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis).

And normally she doesn't really do anything in Canada. Cause Canada is awesome and we can rule our damn selves! But in 2009 the representative of the Queen did in fact shut down the Canadian government so they wouldn't have another election. It actually made sense. And from what I hear, the request was not actually from HRH Queen Elizabeth II. No it was from the Canadian officials who thought calls for another election would be disastrous. The Queen's representative just happened to be the best way to put all the riotious non-sense to a stop. And she did. And everyone cooled off. And then came back and did what the government is supposed to do. Which is not to have an absurd number of elections and instead carry out the business of the people

Ok, enough of that rant. Now, why is the Royal Wedding political?

Well, in my lifetime Queen Elizabeth will die (God save the Queen.) But let's face it, she's hold old? (hold on, got to google that.) She turned 85 last week. And her mother did live forever - despite the drinking - she was 102. The Queen will probably get very very old and in the process become the longest ruling monarch every in the history of recorded history. In the same vein, my grandmother lived until she was 97. Which is also very old. And I hopefully have inherited her genes and will live a long natural life. But my point is the odds of me living longer than are good.

And that does that mean? It means I'll see another monarch crowned. And I'm betting I'll see Prince William ascend the thrown. Which means Princess Catherine will be the Queen. Now she won't be queen in the same way HRH Queen Elizabeth II is queen, but she'll be more of a queen than Elizabeth's husband's title. Elizabeth's husband is in fact the Queen's Consort and not the King. It has to do with Royal hierarchies and gender and this blog is already too long.

Long story short, Princess Catherine will be sleeping with Prince William when he becomes King. And the person you're sleeping with always influences your decisions. Which could in turn affect the Canadian government. That's my point.

Also I enjoy looking at silly hats.

In related ideas. A friend of mine was discussing how outdated, superfluous and down right medieval the monarchy is. Even though they have no real political power. To which I said - and I feel like I have more right to say this sort of thing, because I'm American and Canadian, and I understand both perspectives in a very tangible way. While my ancestors were divided across ye olde royalist/loyalist line, I'm straddling it a bit. And I say that the monarchy is like a flag, except it's a face. And well, people like faces. Our brains like them (lots of studies, to which I can't find links at the moment). Faces are more relate-able than flags. It's easier to be a patriot to a person who is non-political, like the monarchy. But when you only have political faces (IE, the US president) not everyone gets behind them. And then the people are struggling to find something to represent their patriotism and they get super zealous about the flag. And they try to pass laws about the flag. The monarchy is a person. You don't need to pass respect laws for a person. They'll get treated like a person naturally.

None of this argument is to indicate that I'm against American independence. I'm very much for it. Very much.

Thank you for your time.

Easter

The two things you must have for Easter:
1) chocolate
2) flowers
Both were successfully fulfilled. And there were real buttermilk pancakes. On that note I'm taking suggestions for other recipes that contain buttermilk, because, well, now I have a lot of it.
Yes @kephen that is the silly anamatronic duck you got my for Christmas. Looks like you knew what I needed better than I did. And yes, that is a real, undyed egg tucked into the foilage.

The Easter Bunny did in fact visit the block. Proof below.

Screenplays

So I'm writing a screenplay. I know. I never thought I'd see the day. And I'm pretty sure there are other other people who are more surprised than I am. And then there are some people who are grateful that I'm finally venturing into an area of writing that could possibly offer a large paycheck. Although I'm convinced that a steady stream of royalties from plays is in the long run more lucrative that lump sum movie script sales. But that's just me being the turle, trying to win the race at my own pace. Well at least it's not the rat race and I'm not a race (for a key to this reference, google search Lily Tomlin rat race). Anyway, screenplays. So I bought the screenplay writing book. You know the one about saving the cat. And he says that pages 12 through 25 (I would amend this be pages 13-14, because specific things happen on 12 and 25). He says that pages 12-25 are "The Debate", where the Hero (or anti-hero) tries to decide whether or not to pursue the call to duty. In any case, the way he quickly writes about it sounds like the writer is supposed to vamp for 12 pages so that the end of act 1 happens on page 25. But that the contents of 12-25 don't really matter that much. I'd like to argue this. 13 pages is a lot of pages of screenplay. If the screenplay is only 110 pages long that's 12% of the screenplay. You can't waste that much time! The story will die. Now what do I propose these 13 pages contain? Well I think the hero needs to find the real reason to fight the fight. Not just the reason he should fight, but the reason he personally wants to fight for. Like in my case, the main character he should solve the case against his supervisor's instructions because the bad guys need to be brought down. Yeah, well what does that mean to him? Bubkis! That's right. It don't mean shit. But he should solve the case because this beautiful woman needs his help to find her daughter and the only way to find her is to bring down the evil do-ers. I think that sounds good. Much better than this so called expert. Anyway, that's my 4 cents (inflation you know)!

More Cocktreat Photos

I don't think I should say anything about these.