Where there's life, there's hope

A real quick entry because - tra la! - the wonderful Sh. is paying a visit soon and I must finish tidying. So, I'll do my standard observations, but in the order of the Thirteen (or so) Noble Khai.

Basilisk: I picked up Niamh today because I wanted something for my morning toilette that didn't come with the need to finish it, and so I happened to flip open to the bit wherein she drinks the waters of the Sea of Memory. As I was reading, I kept thinking: "Did I write this? I can't believe I wrote this. It's not quite as 'high' as I recall. Hmmm, shoot - what is that style? Must get back into that style if we have any hope of beginning let alone finishing Gavron. Darn, this might make an interesting screenplay. No, no - too much to do right now. And any screenplay accomplished first ought to be Emmanuel for Tony, Bearskin for myself and THEN this. Darn, this isn't half bad! Wait, no, that ought to be a 'whom' not a 'who'! AUGH!" Psychologists are mystified by authors who tend to play patient, doctor AND couch all in one. And when the author says she can fly out the window, half the time she can.

Rao: Finished the first draft of my video resume last night! Glory, glory, hallejuuuuuuuuuuuia! Now must get it onto DVD and see if it actually plays. But I'm fairly satisfied with it. Still wish I could have added a few more video clips but.... At least I had gotten bizarrely compelled to finish "E horo" before my laptop went haywire! Ended up using "Time to Say Goodbye" for Twelfth Night - strangely, I think it works. I had to reposition a few of the slide images with Toby & Co. so that they didn't hit musical high points, but all is good. Thank God for technology. Now, let's see if it works!

Ooniwe-Po Also on DVD, Jules rented one of the last three remaining copies (out of about 80 in our local Blockbuster) of The Two Towers. OK, man, I'd forgotten how much I really love that movie. It has its flaws, certainly, but it still never fails to move me, particularly Sam's speech, Gollum's mono/dialogue, and the White Rider (and the charge previous to his arrival). My GOD! You know that is the life You've given me! I've said it before: to see those handful of men pushing benches, tables, any stray wood up against the door while ten THOUSAND orcs are battering outside...and then to bravely charge into them, to ride the horses through the hall, to still fight "when your arms are too weary, to beat the unbeatable foe." William Goldman calls this "stupid courage." Tolkien called it "the long defeat." Christ called it "God's wisdom" which appears as folly to men. Its the doing what needs to be done, even in the face of death. Because "there's still good in the world, Mr. Frodo - and it's worth fighting for!" God, God, God! May I live a life worthy of that sentiment! May I inspire those I meet to the same. "Those were the stories worth reading. Those were the stories that really meant something, even though you may have been to young to understand why." Tolkien, Tolkien - pray for us! Amen!

Dostya: Listening to Shrek at the moment - the second CD with all the background music, and even better the little songs from the movie. Favorite is still the exploding bird. Bwahahahahahahahh! Rather along the lines of the idea of folks leaning out their NYC windows and throwing shoes and moldy fruit at Tony as he sings "Maria" in West Side Story. You think the Bronx is going to stay quiet when someone's serenading them? HA! I guess that's why they call it fiction....

Dragon: Last night, Jill came for last minute coaching on her monologue for auditions for her new artsy high school. (God bless Jill! Amen!) As mentioned before, it's Rosalind's speech from As You Like It that bit about the marks of a man in love. (My take on it from 2000 here [scroll way down].) Jill is doing faboo, so it was really a matter of tweaking, but we added in some new blocking in two places. First when she has those tough lines about "You may as soon make her that you love believe it [that you, Orlando, love her/me]! Which I warrant she is apter to do than to confess she does. That is one of the points in the which women still give the lies to their consciences. There is a man...." Tough tough transitions. So what we did was made it so that the first sentence is Ganymede/Rosalind, the second is ALL Rosalind, and then she shudders and crouches into Gollum/Ganymede for the "THAT is one of the points...." So worked. SO good!

Then the bit "But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?" we had her pretend that Orlando has actually taken her hand (his line right before is, "By this hand, I am [he who hung the love poetry about Rosalind on the trees]." Then he answered her question with, "Neither rhyme nor reason could express how much." Right, so I completely am convinced that Orlando is in process of guessing/testing whether or not this is Rosalind (I mean, come on - a) girls rarely make convincing boys and b) Orlando had BETTER be that smart a cookie to deserve a faboo character like Rosalind!). So, he tests her by taking a risk and leaning in to kiss her to see how she'll react - like scaring quail out of a bush. Her eyes widen, she leans back a tad and then JUST before he wins, she breaks away with a hurried Ganymede: "Love is merely a madness!" Works so well! Yee-HAW!

Last, Jill had wanted to have both of them sit for "Yes, once, and in this manner" - which seems to make sense to me. That means, however, that she leaves him sitting and has to pull him up at some point. So we decided to up the stakes with that whole positioning thing. Basically, Rosalind/Ganymede goes off about how women are inconstant, etc., and then bends towards him (he's still sitting on the floor) with "Now like him, now loathe him, then entertain him, then forswear him, now weep for him, then SPIT at him!" So by this point she's bent double over him, and he's undoubtedly starting to lean back and think about escaping from this scary person. But she continues on, stalking him, getting lower and lower over him with, "That I DRAVE my suitor from his mad humor of love to a living humor of madness!" She's got her face practically to the floor now, she's pinned Orlando with her arms and he's terrified and she's enjoying every Ganymede moment, and continues: "Which was, to forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a nook, merely monastic." Pause. "And thus I cured him." Then since he's not going anywhere, she lifts one hand, traces his chest physician-y/vampire-like, "And in this way, will I take it upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's heart." Drawing herself back to her feet, "That there shall not be one spot of live in't." Done. The transformation from terrified Rosalind to confident Ganymede is complete. She looks down at Orlando and extends her hand. She helps him up but keeps hold of him when he would go. "I would cure you, youth." But, aw, darn it, she IS Rosalind, and now that he's taller than her again, all the girlish sentiments bubble through her belly and she lets go. "If you would but call me...Rosalind? And come every day to my cote? And woo me?" Oh, my goodness, do I EVER want to direct As You Like It someday! It was so good! God bless Jill! Amen.

Fawn: When helping Jill last night, I took upon me to play Orlando once or twice so that she'd know how to act. Esp. the bit where she scares the heck out of him (last paragraph). It's good in monologues to have a really good idea of where your eye-contact is going to be, and also to have sense-memory of what the other (invisible) person's reactions are - since it's difficult to impossible to act WELL against air. So Jill is creeping me out as she's coming after me, and it was no acting to try and get away from her, and then SHE pinned me because I was about to win and get up and bolt, and as she's finishing up the speech more or less, the thought flits though my mind: I miss acting. No, let me clarify that. I miss acting under a good director. I had some of that when I took acting classes at school. Mr. Dougherty was always pushing us to take risks, to be daring with our choices, to raise the stakes. But it was also a lot of self-direction in those classes. Unfortunately, then, the two plays I was in were more stiff in their blocking necessities: Twelfth Night and Our Town. Or rather, I had roles that were more distant from the rest of the cast. I think I played them well - Feste esp. - but it wasn't as risky as other roles in the play were. And when I played Rosalind in Stratford, the focus was more on how to say Shakespeare, rather than on movement. That's precisely what it needed to be, and that's what it was. We had some cool movement, but "floor work" was kind of out of the question due to the audience set-up. Likewise, my directors didn't (I think) go with the idea that Orlando knew - and although the other actor did, he didn't DO anything to make that apparent (motion wise, he was good with his lines, although now looking back I think there still could have been more. Ah well).

Don't think that I'm putting down my awesome directors. Not one jot. It's just that different things were required for what parts I had with them, what they were focussing on teaching, etc. But to be in an ENTIRE play with a good - not not just a good, a genius director - oh, I long for that! I want to learn from him! I want to be forced into those wild, exciting, too close, too personal places! I want to have my mettle tested. To see again what it's like from an actor's eyes. It's been far too long since I've acted. It's a completely different world - there is no detachment if it's done right. It's alive and vibrant and frightening as Hell. Oh, Lord! Wouldn't it be loverly! But with a genius director, God - not one where everyone else makes up for his lack. *sigh* And with GREAT fellow actors. Oh, Lord! Pretty please?

Grezchk: That's pretty much it. I've been typing longer than I intended! Silly girl. Off to finish up those few things that need doing. It looks like I might have a pianist for my choir next year in the new French teacher! Alleluia! And so in that, as in all things, "THERE! Art thou happy."

Mood: Snerk-y
Music: Shrek Album 2
Quote: Hope never disappoints