Tag Archives: theatre

textbooks for winter 2012

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In less than a week, I start my second quarter at Portland State University. I have registered for three classes: Development of Dramatic Art I (aka Theatre History), Dramatic Writing II, and Intro to Theater Research. The first two classes are on Tuesday and Thursdays, and the last class is only on Wednesday. So basically I have Mondays and Fridays off, and no class on Tues/Wed/Thurs is earlier than 2pm. That’s pretty awesome.

I thought I’d talk a bit about my theatre textbooks, because honestly I have little else to talk about on this, the inaugural Theatre Thursday. You’d think I’d have more, but no, you would be mistaken.

First off, let me just say this: I had to buy the MLA Handbook. I am really disappointed that I had to do this. Somewhere out there are a handful of people who think citing things is the Pinnacle of Their Lives. Those people become writers of the MLA Handbook. Those people debate about the importance of the oxford comma. Those people drink wine alone at home with their cats instead of going to a bar. There is nothing wrong with that, by the way. But their output is the MLA Handbook, which, as far as I’m concerned, should be the only book burned.

Here are some photos and accompanying early reviews of my other textbooks.

hardcover? hot damn!

I’ve taken theatre classes for a long time now, and this is the first time I’ve actually had a theatre textbook. Usually we use anthologies, books full of different plays that are printed chronologically. You examine the history of theatre through the plays themselves. But this is a textbook! Good lord! Luckily, it’s not very thick. But it has pictures and infographs and bold chapter fonts and all the fixings. It kind of freaks me out, to be honest. I mean, theatre history is just a specific type of history, so it makes sense to have it come in a history book. Still. It creeps me out. I haven’t read a proper textbook in ages. Who knows, it might be easier to read than a shitty play. I guess we’ll find out.

Since Development of Dramatic Art I deals with the early, early stuff, I have a couple of Greek and Roman play books. Here they are:

Greek comedy and tragedy, at least the stuff you read in college, is pretty good. I think they had the play festivals for a reason, and the plays that survived did so because they were better than most other things. I haven’t read any Roman plays because I was taught from the get go that they were worse than Greek plays, when they weren’t just stolen outright from Greek playwrights1. The plays in this anthology include: two Aristophenes plays, Lysistrata (of course) and The Birds; Menander’s play The Grouch; two Plautus plays, The Menaechmi and Mostellaria; and Terence’s play The Self-Tormenter. I’ve only read Lysistrata, and that was a long time ago, so I guess this is a good book for me to own!

Aaaand here’s the other half. Tragedy. A bunch of sad people being sad. Boo hoo and the like. So what’s interesting about this book is what’s inside: We got Aeschylus’ The Orestia and Prometheus Bound; then Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (called Oedipus the King here; stuuupid) and Antigone; then Euripides’ Medea and the Bacchae (called The Bakkai here; sttuuuuuupid). THEN we have Seneca, who just rewrote Oedipus Rex and Medea, apparently. Very interesting! It seems like comedy was something one could branch out with, but tragedy was kept to specific subjects. Also, I hope we don’t have to read Prometheus Bound, because it is so, so awful.

"genius" is a bit much, book.

The Genius of the Early English Theater! Here’s a book absolutely no one except a theatre major would own. Seriously, no one needs to read Abraham and Isaac or The Second Shepherd’s Play, unless you were studying the history of pageant plays. And Everyman, too. Ugh. Fortunately they plopped Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Macbeth in there for good measure. I actually haven’t read Marlowe or Ben Jonson, or Milton for that matter, so that’ll be nice. Unfortunately I have to plod through the pageant plays and read some theatre historian’s old, moldy opinion on how great they are. Faaantastic. It’s like going to your grandmother’s house and listening to her talk about how wonderful phosphoric acid is. Yeah yeah, grandma, maybe back in the 1920s, but come on now.

And last but not least, we have the one book for my Intro to Theater Research class (besides the evil MLA Handbook):

Oh man! Essays on the Historiography of Performance?! SIGN ME UP!

This class is going to kill me, I can sense it. All I have to do is get through it. Ten weeks, just ten weeks …

In reality, I enjoy having deadlines for reading plays, mostly because I won’t read them on my own, because, you know, Skyrim. Even though Greek plays can be pretty long and boring, the comedies are genuinely funny, and the tragedies have a lot going for them, though they do tend to ramble on a bit too long. I think maybe our perceptions of tragedy have changed in 2,500 years, which is interesting, because comedy has pretty much stayed the same. That’s why you see Lysistrata being performed all the time, because it’s funny, and because it highlights gender inequality in a funny way.

Lysistrata’s a pretty fascinating piece on its own, really. People in modern times like to use it as some sort of proto-feminist play, where women “get back” at the men, but really, most Greek plays written by men were about the contemplation of women, whom they, for the most part, considered very powerful and were even a little frightened of. A lot of Greek plays involve strong, powerful women (Medea) and relatively stupid or naive men (Oedipus, Jason). I think women had a place in the home back then that we just don’t recognize today. We see it as male suppression. But a lot of it was just safety; places back then were a lot more dangerous than they are today.

Either way, I don’t want to suggest that the world wasn’t patriarchal back then, but more that it was a different form of patriarchy than we see today. Just like tragedy was different back then, or religion, or the concept of tyrannical rule. Doesn’t excuse everything, but it’s important to see things from all sides, rather than just putting our modern bias on the past.

Well, that was quite the digression. Fortunately, I have lots of time to read plays, write essays, and hopefully write more blog posts, perhaps on the subject of women in ancient times, which I know relatively little about because all of the history written back then was written by men. I guess that says more about the world back then than anything I say now.

  1. In hindsight, my Theatre History professor was Russian Orthodox, and probably didn’t enjoy Roman things very much in the first place. ↩

audition! …. AUDITION.

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The title should be sung in the style of “Tradition” from Fiddler on the Roof.

So today was a bit of a productive day. I challenge my fear of the Portland mass-transit system and managed to make it quite easily around town.

My first task was to get myself all prettified, which meant wearing nice slacks and the only nice white dress shirt I own (if you’ve known me for more than six months, you have seen this shirt). I looked good. I looked damn good. I grabbed my man bag, stuffed with The Glass Menagerie (“Pleurosis! I thought you said blue roses!“), some resume/headshots, and a notepad in case creativity struck me (it didn’t), and headed off into the wild Portland yonder.

My first trip was to a casting call for a commercial about people playing a Wii game. That’s the extent of what I know. I left my house at 1:30; the casting call was at 3:00. I, being completely naive about the transit system, thought it would take approximately a million hours to get from point A to point B. My brain did not register the perfectly logical argument that the transit system should not take approximately a million hours, because it is a transit system and, by nature, should not be leisurely. Still, I figured, give it an extra hour at least, which frightened me into an hour and a half. I mean, what if the bus breaks down? What if I get on the wrong bus? What if a bear somehow gets on the bus and I have to wrestle it to the ground with my bare hands? I was merely adding an extra half hour for potential bear-wrestling variables.

I got there at 2:10. And felt very sheepish. It was okay, though, because I had no idea where the place was, or where I was, really, and so it afforded me a lot of time to walk around and survey the scene. After a while I realized I was roughly in the same place that I had gotten lost in three years ago when I went with my girlfriend at the time to see my first Decemberists concert. It’s an industrial district, which is why having an ad agency right in the middle of it was kind of odd. But I found it, at like 2:20. And had forty minutes to waste. But what to do?

Obviously, the answer to that is eat. But, alas, I am (notoriously) poor, and had to settle on the value menu at a nearby Burger King. I still can’t get over the lack of sales tax here. My spicy chicken crisp was exactly a dollar! Not a dollar six, a dollar even! It was nice to pocket that extra six cents.

I ate in the BK in my nice threads while reading the Forward of this particular copy of The Glass Menagerie (written by Mr. Williams himself), fully aware of how weird it was to be doing this in a Burger King. But hey, I had nothing else to do. I finished my meal and checked my watch. 2:35. Guh.

I ended up going up to the agency at 2:40, stopping to pick up a Willamette Week and Portland Mercury on my way, and when I got up to the third floor I noticed I wasn’t the only one to arrive twenty minutes early, which was nice. I was handed something to sign and then hung out, waiting for 3:00. But then the guy doing the casting (or at least taking the pictures) came out and started taking us at around 2:45. So I got in (fourth in line), got my Polaroid and some info (am I available Oct 3rd? [hell yes] Have I done extra work before? [yes!]), and was out by 2:55. Not half bad. Oh, and apparently the look for the commercial is preppy private school, and he asked me if I had anything like that, and I said, “Uh, I think so…” and he said, “Well, what you’re wearing would be fine,” and I was like, “Yessssss.” I said that in my head, though, not out loud.

So I took the bus home and played with a dog for a while and waited until five (a proper hour, not hour and a half) to make my way uptown for my play audition. Boarded the 72 bus, which was supposed to take me north to Killingsworth, then west to 7th Ave. It did not do that.

It happened quite suddenly. At Cully, the driver shouted, “END OF THE LINE!” then turned the bus off. And the lights. And we (about ten of us) sat there in silence before she said, “Okay! Get off the bus!”

We shuffled off, very confused. I saw another bus across a parking lot that also said Killingsworth on it and asked the driver if he was going to 7th Ave. He said no, he’s going south. I asked if there was a bus going to 7th Ave. He shrugged his shoulders. Nice.

I dialed the Trimet number to see if another 72 was coming by. It said there was, which meant that I had just gotten on the wrong bus, apparently. So the rest of the exiled bus passengers and I waited for that bus to arrive. And when it did, the world was good again. Until the lady said, halfway down the line, that it was Last Thursday and she would not be turning on Alberta. I had no idea what this meant, so I was just fine with that.

Then I remembered that I had to get off at 7th and Alberta. But we were still on Killingsworth. So, uh … what the hell do I do? And what the F was Last Thursday? (Answer: it’s like First Thursday in Boise, except they block of a part of the street for the celebration.) Fortunately, the bus driver was letting people off wherever they wanted, since there were no bus routes on Killingsworth at this point, and people were Generally Discombobulated. So I asked her nicely if I could get off at 7th, and she said Yes, and I did.

So now I was at 7th and Killingsworth, and needed to be at 6th and Alberta. I was slightly disoriented, still trying desperately to negotiate the compass system that is so crucial here. I decided to walk in a direction I thought was south. And then I remembered that I had Verizon Navigator on my phone, so I whipped it out and after a bit of tinkering, I found out that I was, in fact, traveling south, and that I wasn’t far from Alberta, and yada yada I made it to King Elementary, where the audition was happening.

I was going to write about the audition process but I think my specific opinions should not be shouted out to everyone to hear (I have learned to keep my mouth shut after certain blog posts…), but in general it went very well. I left all my playbooks and monologue books in Boise, so I only had my Tom monologue from Menagerie (After the fiasco at Rubicam’s business college … yeah, that one), which I did very well, if I say so myself. The director seemed to enjoy it, at least. And she asked if I could stick around and read sides and I said Oh Yes and so I did.

I got a little intimidated because the other people auditioning had agents and nice color headshots and connections and other shows they were doing, but from the little amount of partner work I did tonight, I can safely say that I held my own. Also, the saddest thing was when I realized that this would be the first time I had ever acted opposite a black person. Oh Idaho, must you be so white and Mormon? The two guys I did scenes with were great, though, and it made me a little disappointed at the lack of color in the BSU theatre program. We had a bunch of white kids and a couple of Asians and that’s about it. Oh, and Dominique. She was, er, is black. And I guess I did do La Mancha with her. So I append my statement: first time acting with a black male.

I don’t want to bring it up as a race thing, but I think what a lot of people fail to see is that in Idaho, it’s not so much racism as lack of race. It just doesn’t exist. So it’s not like we’re racist at all, we just don’t see a lot of black people, which is sad, because they are awesome.

Anyway, off my race soapbox. I held my own in the audition, I thought, and took the 6 bus to the MAX to get home (no way was I going to try the 72 again, not tonight…). And now I’m home and I jus
t ate a bunch of Tic-Tacs! I think I’m addicted!

various recommendations and whatnot

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My brother has season 1 and 2 of Dexter, and we spent most of Saturday watching the entire second season in anticipation of season 3. I’m surprised how much I enjoy that show. From a theatrical standpoint, it follows a lot of thematic things that we used to talk about in Play Analysis class. I never thought that would ever happen. Like, for example, every character in the show has something to hide or sublimate. I used to scoff at the idea of every character in a play having the same fundamental action or motivation, because I thought it was impossible. But I see it in Dexter. Michael Hall is a fantastic actor. It’s amazing how well he can convey warmth in a serial killer. I think it has something to do with his morals that allows us to go with him. I mean if he were just a cold-blooded serial killer, that would be one thing, but he has feelings (even though he says he doesn’t) and he truly loves the people around him, even if they’re keeping him from being what he thinks he is, which is a cold-blooded serial killer.

God, that show is just really well put together. I’d delve into it more specifically but I don’t want to ruin any plot points for those of you who haven’t seen it. Get it on Netflix or buy it or whatever. It’s good. Even the voiceover is good, and I hate voiceovers. The only time voiceover works is when the character says one thing while the opposite is happening on screen, and thankfully that happens a lot on Dexter. It’s very good. Plus the second season has Jaime Murray in it (she plays Lila) and she is a hot, hot English woman and she’s naked or almost naked most of the season. It’s great.

The third season starts in like two weeks! I’m excited.

Right now I’m listening to the new Calexico album and I really enjoy it. It’s called Carried to Dust and it’s a lot more Latin feeling than their last album. I wasn’t a huge Calexico fan before but I think this album will be listened to a lot.

ummm, that’s about it right now, really. I’m still job hunting. Oh, I have an audition for a play in a week or so! It’s a new play by local Portland playwright Helen Hill. She was kind enough to send me a copy of the play to read before the audition and I have to say it’s pretty good. I think it could use a polish or two with regards to dialogue and scene stuff, but that might get fixed in rehearsal. And even if it doesn’t it’ll still be a good production, hopefully. It pays well enough. Assuming I rock the audition. It’s about eugenics in the 1920s through the 60s. The play primarily takes place in 1934 and is about a doctor who sterilizes poor, “feeble-minded” people so they won’t reproduce. It raises some interesting questions, primarily about the morality of eugenics and a somewhat elitist take on “survival of the fittest”; namely, the question of what it means to be the “fittest.” The script right now to me seems a bit too dry and presentational but it can be limbered up in rehearsal. I think it’s a solid premise though, and none of the characters are too obtuse or two-dimensional, with the slight exception of the doctor, who doesn’t really offer any good human explanation for why he cuts out poor women’s ovaries other than that they’re a blight on society (poor women, not ovaries). Again, if given the opportunity to discuss the play in a development session, I will bring this up, but other than that I just want to act and get paid for it, honestly. I think it’s a good show and I think people will like it.

My only problem is that I left all my playbooks in Boise. The only play I have here is The Glass Menagerie. Why I have it, I don’t know, but it looks like I’ll be pulling out a Tom monologue with some Shakespeare backups. Boy oh boy.

(Seriously though, it would rock if I got cast in this show, so send some good vibes if you got ‘em)

The job hunting still sucks. I have sent resumes to tutors and people who want someone to teach guitar to middle school kids for a couple of weeks, and receptionists, and etc etc etc. I really don’t want a shitty job and I feel like I’m in a good place to pace myself a little bit (not a lot, though, but at least my brother and his wife aren’t really living paycheck to paycheck…). Hopefully something good and achieveable will come up soon. Again, more good vibes!

That’s all for now!

the theatre degree; or, how to intentionally starve yourself with $40,000 in student loans

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It’s becoming more and more clear as the days go by that my Theatre Arts degree from Boise State isn’t going to help me one bit. While most people say that just having a college degree to begin with is a good place to be, I find that most prospective employers take a look at a theatre degree and say, “What can we do with that?” The trouble, it seems, is that most degrees in college center on specific vocations: business, management, business management, fixing cars, nursing, being a doctor, film and television, english (teaching), history (teaching), mathematics (teaching) and, of course, teaching. Art, on the other hand, is shunned, and we — painters, actors, musicians, singers — are huddled into this corner where we become, ostensibly, Jack of All Trades.

Most people, for example, don’t know the sheer amount of business knowledge that a theatre major receives during our collegiate career. By the time I graduated I basically knew how to run a theatre company, and I sort of know the odds and ends in getting money from sponsors and grants. Technical theatre is about learning carpentry, electrics, and sound engineering. Playwriting is about English skills, proof-reading and creative writing. Directing is about management. In a way, the only truly useless person in a theatre company is the actor, because all they do is utilize their bodies for the show. They don’t build, they don’t manage. They are fodder for the audience. It’s surprising that they get so much attention.

The problem is that while theatre students learn all these different aspects, we don’t learn enough. We go into the job market with okay skills in everything. Our only boon is that we work well under pressure, since that’s what a rehearsal schedule is — two to four weeks of rehearsal, and we open, no matter what. But employers don’t see that. Employers see an actor who doesn’t have any job skills whatsoever. A bunch of roles in various plays doesn’t mean you have what it takes in the real world. In fact, it suggests the exact opposite — that you like playing in a fantasy world, and thus couldn’t handle real problems.

This, of course, couldn’t be further from the truth. Theatre students are fully capable of handling any problem thrown at them, because they usually are at some point in the production process. We work well with others, and form bonds easily because that’s what we do. Some actors are prima donnas, yes, but those ones are shunned by the theatre community as well.

I graduated Boise State with a Theatre Arts degree, and my work resume is a hapless mishmash of three or four jobs I’ve worked since 2001. It looks like the resume of a 16-year-old. What it doesn’t take into account is that I spent most of my days in school, for twelve or thirteen hours, going to class and then going to rehearsal. Or that point a couple of years ago when I had to work to live in Boise, so I would go in at Hastings at 7:00am, leave at noon to go to class until 4:30, and then rehearse from 6:00 to 10:00. Most people who are business majors don’t do this. I don’t think anyone works as hard as people in the arts. I don’t think they even understand the amount of work we put in, on top of our jobs and extra-curricular activities. I’m not complaining. I’m actually happy about all of it. It’s tough but the end result is fantastic: opening night of a show you worked your ass off for, and now people get to see it. It’s great.

I just wish that employers knew what we did, so that they could understand what we can do for them.

And on that note, I should go and look for a job.