11 July Here I am, with only half an hour before I have to go. How very unusual. Okay, let's see what I can vomit up in that period.
On Saturday I went to see Anne's production of As You Like It, part of "Shakespeare in the Parking Lot". I was going to see it the Saturday before, but that bad Tracing said "No, wait, I can't go on Saturday and I can't go with you!" so I decided to wait, and then, Monday morning she sends me this pathetic little email telling me that she had gone on Saturday after all, but with a different friend! O the badness of her!
So anyway, I went on Saturday instead, which was closing night. What is Shakespeare in the Parking Lot? Glad you asked. Well, you know Shakespeare in the Park? Well this is the same thing, but in a parking lot. Glad we cleared that up. It is free theatre performed in a municipal parking lot downtown on Ludlow St. They don't put up flats or anything, the space is absolutely raw, and it's just fascinating, because there is so much going on. I am not one of those actors that needs things to be difficult--easy as possible is what I like, but with this the obstacles are so mountainous that I think they would be fascinating to over come. First of all, there is the whole volume thing. I can only imagine that the casting notice read "CAN YOU BE LOUDER THAN A BUS?", or if it didn't, it should have. Volume was a problem--so much so that I could only say that it was better to be heard than to be good (something taken to heart by a couple of the actors). The only characters that could consistently be heard were Orlando, Celia, Touchstone/Adam and Anne as Phoebe. This was unfortunate in Touchstone's case, as it made every syllable of his bad cockney accent chime clear as a bell. There was one actor that I assume was quite good, because the audience kept pissing themselves whenever he spoke, but as it tended to be the six people nearest him, and I was never fortunate enough to be one of those six, I couldn't tell for certain. The musical numbers would have been more effective had they been at all audible. Car stereos three blocks away were louder, I don't know why they didn't use one of them, but then, for the last couple of songs, they were suddenly loud, so I don't know if they discovered the volume knob or what. Other distractions for people to overcome were people, meaning non-audience members. There was an entire Chinese family playing badminton without a net in one corner of the lot, the children often, effortlessly, louder than the cast (perhaps they give vocal coaching on the side?), people walking across the stage a regular intervals, someone playing with a remote control car, and, my favourite, an old Chinese man who sat down on the base of a lightpole that was being used as part of the stage and stayed for about 45 minutes, clearly having a whale of a time. At one point, when Orlando was putting his poems up on trees to proclaim his love for Rosalind, he slapped one on the lightpole, and then another right on the old Chinese man's shoulder. It was the most brilliant use of circumstances, it was the best example of being in the moment that I have ever seen! Anne, if I haven't mentioned before, was absolutely great. She speaks Shakespeare so naturally that it's a joy to listen to.
Afterwards, I tagged along with the cast to the after party, which was fun. The bar was so very loud that it made conversation difficult, but since, as an audience member, I had been straining to hear what was going on for the past three hours, I was well in practice. Several people featured in Anne's journal were there, Kirkman and Andrea (whom I had met before, and who was quite good as Audrey) and Jenny O, which was fun, like meeting characters in a book. Kirkman is the most amazing-looking person, though, I'm desperate to photograph her, not that I told her at the time. She's like a combination of Jodie Foster and Linda Manz--she looked like a tomboy runaway street kid, but she has the most beautiful face. It was a great combination. I felt a little doofy around so many strangers ten years younger than myself, as though I should have thanked them for letting Grandma join in until the van from the Old Folks Home screeched up to bundle her back where she belonged, but if anyone viewed me that way they were polite enough not to mention it. There was no talk of "look out, you'll break a hip!" or anything.
Here was a funny conversation.
ANNE
TREY
KYMM
TREY
KYMM
(slightly later)
SOMEBODY
SOMEBODY ELSE
TREY
DANIELLE
EVERYBODY
KYMM
KIRKMAN
KYMM
Then we played "Would you rather" for awhile, and Jenny O, I must say, is the queen of thinking up questions. You know, would you rather masturbate in front of your entire family or have sex with your best friend's partner with your best friend watching, or would you rather have a third boob or a penis and a vagina at the same time, or who would you switch-hit for--meaning who would you sleep with who is not of your regular gender preference. Anne's was Angelina Jolie, mine was Winona Ryder, and Jenny's was Drew Barrymore, so much so that she kept trying to talk everyone else into choosing Drew Barrymore as well. It was a fun evening. I got home at 3a.
Well, who would you switch-hit for? And we're still talking about funny kid stories, unintentional comedies, sexiest thing that maybe other people will think is weird, (you don't want me to ask sex questions, do you?), procrastination, our new favourite books, and still, and always, our big fat asses.
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