Monthly Archives: July 2009

Love Labors, Lost

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tichy-love-lost

The sound first caught my attention while I was preparing breakfast. I have grown used to the sound of the neighbor’s baby wingeing now and then, but this was different, this was sobbing, heavy sobs. And this was no baby. I went to the window and scanned the courtyard, parking lot and balconies looking for the source.

Finally, across the courtyard, on the top balcony, I saw her. She stood at his door, as I had seen her countless times before, but now she was wracked with sobs and with the flat of her palms she knocked at his door. Her hair fell in damp strands across her face, her shoulders heaving up and down with the sobs, her mouth moving as if she were trying to speak, but only the sobs emerged. She slapped at the door with both hands and then just let them slide down the door as her whole body leaned towards the door, her face against the window pane, and slid down in resignation.

She gave up knocking on the door and slowly, as though her legs were made of rubber, she turned away. Her face was all grimace and anguish. She pulled at the hem of her sundress and brought it up to wipe the tears from her face in an awkward way. As her shoulders continued to heave with sobs the left strap of the dress slip off her shoulder and fell down her arm. She slowly collapsed to a seating position on the stoop and sat on the stairway, half naked, burying her head in her hands. Quiet.

In a moment she lifted her head, absently pulled her bodice back up, arose slowly. Staggering almost drunkenly she trudged down the stairs and out of the courtyard. Utterly, magnificently dejected.

I hope she can find whatever comfort she needs. It wasn’t waiting for her here, at his apartment. Not anymore.

David’s Readhaired Death

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Last night found Pawn and escort at the premier performance of Youngblood Theatre‘s inaugural season: David’s Redhaired Death. The script, by Sherry Kramer, is a train wreck. It is full of forward references, flashbacks, speeches to the audience, and other atypical theatrical conceits. The story has barely any narrative to it, but rather we in the audience are given stuttering glimpses into another train wreck; the love affair between two redheads, Jean (Tess Cinpinski) and Marilyn(Jazmin Vollmar).

Action begins at an open mic night. Jean takes the stage and begins the first of many speeches to the audience.   Next comes a rather twee bit about the sisterhood of read haired women and their supposedly extraordinary qualities.  This provides a thread which weaves in and out of a budding relationship between Jean and Marilyn, her paramour. David’s Redhaired Death is a production starved for silences, nowhere more than in this first third of the one-act.  Jean and Marilyn hurtle forward (and sometimes back) propelled by the fever pitch of their dialog and monologues.   You may find yourself dazzled by the rapid fire dialog, Pawn found himself numbed.

The best parts of a drama are often found in those spaces between and around the words.  We are given no such room here, neither are the actors.   They seem at times to strain against the sheer volume of text through which they must chew in any given scene.  But just as the audience is given little or no time to reflect upon the text, the characters at times seem to lack reflection as sentence after sentence spring forth from them and fall, unconsidered, onto the stage floor.

The final third of the show does bring us a moment or two of pause, as well as one truly moving scene between Jean and Marilyn.  Cinpinski and Vollmar shine in this part of the show, and the spare setting melts away from our vision as the intensity of the acting increases.  Jean’s exit speech in the penultimate scene was quite nearly profound.  Had she been allowed to slump down into one of the empty seats, taken a moment and found her motivation for continuing after the psychic body-blows she has just taken (and dealt out) this whole scene could have gone a long way towards reclaiming an otherwise problematic effort.

One hopes Youngblood continue their work, but that they consider more carefully which shows to produce and how frantically they stage them.  This production  disappoints; a defter hand could have tamed this unruly script and presented us the heart hammering story buried within it, without hammering our heads in the process.  This kind of herky-jerky forwards/backwards, repetitious, staccato, reflexive script can be rendered into a moving theatrical experience, as Pawn found with Simple 8‘s production of Monsters at Arcola Theatre back in May, but not like this.

In retrospect, given some more time to consider both the script and the performance, I have tamed some of my earlier comments.  I do look forward to seeing the rest of Youngblood’s season.  If nothing else I am impressed by the sheer audacity of their repertory effort.  Also, the more I think about it, and despite its complexity, I really did like the script for DRD.  The problems in the production made that hard to appreciate at first blush.

Sadness in Tavistock Square – 7/7 Memories

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Listened this morning to interview with a man who lost his girlfriend to the 7/7/2005 terror bombing of a bus in Tavistock Square in Bloomsbury, London. She would normally have been on the tube, but was diverted to the bus.

Unfortunately for her the terrorist was, too.
She called her partner, and as they spoke he suddenly heard screams, then the line went dead. “I knew then that I’d lost her,” he recalls. News of the three earlier tube bombings was already on telly.

I have fond memories of Tavistock Square from my recent visit to London. It was just a block or so from my flat, and I visited there frequently. The square is a memorial to peace, ironically enough. One charming aspect to the square, which I got to witness after theatre one night, was the formally robed bell ringer whose job it is to sweep through the park at closing time, barring and locking each gate, calling out “One and all, the park is closing” as he rang his bell and moved from gate to gate.

Fourth Plinth: One & Other

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Any visitor to Trafalgar Square cannot help but notice the four large plinth or platforms which mark the corners of the square.  Erected in the mid nineteenth century, these hold statuary of the lion and Generals type.  All but one, that is.  The plinth in the northwest corner, directly in front of the National Galleries stands empty, or has for most of its existence.

A couple of years ago a contest was staged which solicited ideas for what to put on the fourth plinth.  This is really rather difficult at this stage, as London have gotten quite used to it being empty.  Many responses to the challenge were received, and a select group of these have been getting their day, as it were, for the past year.  When Pawn visited Trafalgar this past May there was a sort of post-modern deconstructivist piece up there, involving metal and perspex and some lime green stuff.  Rather distasteful if you ask me.

Anthony Gormley has a different idea.  His piece, One & Other invites regular folk to mount the plinth, assisted by a cherry-picker, for an hour each, 24 hours a day, for 100 days.  These 2400 people were selected by lot, and within reason are allowed to do what they wish with their time on the plinth.

Jill Gatcum, above, made an eloquent gesture with a baloon release.  She had solicited 60 of her friends and family members to each make a donation to charity which they would not normally have done.  She then assembled 60 helium baloons, each bearing a card comemorating her friend’s donation and soliciting whomever eventually found the baloon to similarly make a donation they would not otherwise have made.  During her hour up on the plinth, cheered on by her friends and family below, Jill released one baloon every minute, and then came back down to earth.

The Independent Online have published a photo gallery celebrating the begining of this audacious project.  Check it out.