Could this be the end? - The last post? It's Saturday, the day of our
final performance in Winnipeg. We're into the second half of our tour
now, and about to wrap up things, and wrap things up, and sail up to
Saskatchewan for smaller climes. Winnipeg has been great to us. We had
our largest crowd of the tour (2:30 on a Thursday!) and some of our
most welcoming, engaged and amused audients.
Today, I will flyer, though, like it's the beginning of the festival.
The Fringe is swarming with new spectators who have come out for the
final weekend. In some ways, they are hard to sway: they have read the
reviews and they are not open to suggestions. The hard-core Fringers
who have been out all week are not in the mood to be flyered.
Yesterday, I was looking around Market Square for folks who were
looking to make decisions, when I came across a middle-aged couple,
each peering quizzically at a separate program. The perfect people to
approach! "We're all booked", she said. I waved my extended flyer
incredulously between the two open programs and mumbled something about
Saturday at Six, but she shook her head, resolutely, in time to my
flyer's oscillations. "We're...all...booked." I don't know who was
ruder, she or I. He never looked up from his programme.
I'm determined to have a good crowd today, despite being up against
such sellouts as "Giant Invisible Robot", "Jesus in Montana", "Maxim
and Cosmo", "Bye, Bye Bombay", and The Simpson’s Movie. Last week
it was Harry Potter. Oy!
Right, gotta chop flyers. If I don't write again, I'd like to thank the
Fringe admin, the volunteers, the performers, CBC Manitoba, and of
course the *audience* for making this a great Fringe! This is really
the best of the big festivals on the circuit, as far as I'm concerned.
And if I can be, I'll be back next year (with something quite different
again)...!
July 26, 2007
A minor, bk. II
Ack, I'm agitated! Don't know why. My best explanation is this: and
thus: we had our biggest crowd of the tour so far! I think we broke the
hundred mark! And they got it! And I found stuff and it was clear and I
FELT it! So I think my agitation is because of a pull within me - an
interesting pull and a not-so-common pull for this show, the
performance of which is so much of a mechanical process for me
(otherwise, I might break an ankle): the pull between feeling great
about the crowd and the reaction (and the suddenly-cooler weather!) and
a kind of sadness that I think is left over from one of my characters.
Nigel, the organist.
This doesn't normally happen, but today, the ending of the play has
left me with a sadness for him and his situation. It's a sadness that I
haven't felt too much since actually writing the show, and now that I
feel it while and after performing. I guess I'm relaxed enough with the
mechanics of the show that I can FEEL its feelings in this kind of way.
That's probably a good thing for someone like me who can tend toward
headiness and whose first performance experiences were as a trombonist
at the back of a concert band.
It's also the halfway point. Today was show 19 of 39. If I look back, a
l o n g way back, I see Ottawa in June, and the hard, hard work that
went into tweaking what we had in preparation for the Ottawa Fringe. If
I look forward, a l o n g way forward, I see Vancouver in September -
the end of a summer, "past" the end of a summer and a long, l o n g
drive home to my new and old home in Toronto. And into...I don't know
yet. I don't even have one plan for the autumn, at least not one that
pays.
It's a funny feeling, strung between joy and melancholy, past and
future. But I dig it. I think I'm going to go eat a lot and see some
shows. Yum, yum. Um, and the German buffet is waiting for tomorrow.
July 26, 2007
A-flat Major?
I wish there was a flat sign on my computer keyboard - I'd use it all the time.
I
missed a day of blogging and almost missed another in my hurry to go to
a schnitzel buffet just down the road from my billets' house. 'Tis the
time of the Fringe when my attention begins to turn to other Fringes -
two Fringes ahead, as it is necessary to get the Edmonton press kits
out on time.
It is a trickier thing than it should be, keeping
track of future festivals while living in the present one. I still have
three shows in Winnipeg (including early this aft), but because of hot
weather and soaked flyers and thoughts of SKTOON billets and EDMO press
kits, I feel like the carpet here is beginning to roll up. Each
festival goes so quickly. I come into town, dreaming of bike rides and
Forks' visits and Osborne Villiage hang-outs, and then, 14 days and 5
days of heat-wave in a row later, it's time to go.
But today, Uptown Magazine will release their reviews, which may inject a bit of life into me yet.
I think I may write more later today. But right now, I have a date with a post office and a whole lot of German food.
July 25, 2007
Oops! I forgot E MINOR, which is in my show for goshsake!
Tonight was an early night returning from the Fringe, which is to say
that I'm beginning my blogging at (exactly!) midnight instead of, like,
1, or 2, or many. I just made a conscious decision not to see "Bald
Ego", deciding instead to save it for a time when my head was more
together and the Number 11 Bus (there's a piece of experimental
music-theatre by Peter Maxwell Davies called that, just so you know,
named for the much more exciting #11 that goes by Westminster Abbey,
Big Ben and St. Paul's Cathedral) wasn't arriving at the bus stop on
Main St. at the tantalizingly exact same time as me. I saw three shows
today, one heavy and poetic ("Toasting the Snow Bride"), one light and
personal and poetic ("Be Prepared"), and one personal and
heavily-physical and exactly what I needed at that moment ("On Second
Thought"). The first two were underattended, as have been many shows
I've seen this year. Not one performance has yet to sell out in my
venue (#4), despite there only being 125 seats. Whassup?
But considering the late night I had last night, the reasons for which
were revealed in this morning's blog (take that, Kris Joseph, two in
one day!), I find myself here, sitting and sipping typically fizzy
homebrew, feeling like today hasn't really started. Today I was sitting
on the bus at about 3 p.m., just heading into Fringe, feeling like it
was MORNING. This is not typical. I'm not one of those "dudes." I like
my mornings to be before noon. This is what Winnipeg Fringe does to me,
and what Saskatoon Fringe with its "dude"-filled performer bar and the
easy stroll home will do even more. Fringes make me into a Perpetually
Tired Person. I am not a morning dove, nor a night owl, I'm just always
kinda dozy. And this heat don't help. Today, especially, I never woke
up at all. I'm going to sleep now and get up again, and then today will
finally get going, I think.
Today was a day off - now we have 4 show days in a row. And if you've
seen "Fugue" yet, you might have a sense of why my body whimpers a
little at the thought. But it's all good, once I get going. After all
(as I just found out through a write-up that my billet printed), I am
performing on a stage that has held Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy,
Harry Houdini, Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie, though they were of
course facing the other way, into the big hall. This building has to be
haunted by ONE of them. I insist on it.
July 23, 2007
F# Minor
Okay, so I'm actually writing this the next morning, although eight
minutes into this writing session, it will actually become afternoon.
Last night I had an 11:00 p.m. show, which is not really my preferred
slot. The question is always what to do with myself during the day, so
that I don't go crazy with anticipation, so that I'm focussed, but not
worried. So I went to the beach. Not Grand Beach (I'm saving that for a
less hurried trip), but Winnipeg Beach on the stonier west side of Lake
Winnipeg. While the temperature in the city was supposedly 37 Celsius
yesterday (a record?), it felt more like 25 up there, in the shade and
in the breeze. But I'm not a chance-taker and wore my tank top and
wide-brimmed hat into the water. The sun and I have a complicated
relationship.
But as cool as it felt there yesterday, I have to admit that my usual
claim that every time I perform "The Fugue Code" I get a little less
sweaty was deeply false last night. I, in fact, sweated for hours after
the show, as I looked for somewhere to sit and something to drink at
the King's Head Pub.
Last night was also far from a typical show, because the audience was
at least half performers. I worry about late slots. I worry that, if I
have to perform this crazy vigorous show at the end of a long hot day
to an audience of 5, I will explode. So we pumped up the proverbial
volume and got some support out there. So we didn't make much money
last night, but we had fun.
Gemma Wilcox ("The Honeymoon Period is Officially Over") and Paul
Thorne ("Bald Ego") chose to sit in the very front centre where they
rather stuck out. My blocking was subconsciously altered, and I found
myself very frequently looming right over them, drenching them I'm sure
in sweat and spittle. Jayson McDonald ("Giant Invisible Robot"), a
repeat customer, dominated the left flank of the crowd with the broad
smile and an open posture that would not have been possible in a full
house. I don't know how I could miss anyone in the small crowd (the
house lights are up for Scene 1!), but Erik de Waal ("Decameron" and
"African Folktales") surprised me in the bar with a batch of freshly
baked hugs. Erik has been closely following my nascent Fringe career,
and the inception of "The Fugue Code" owes a lot to his suggestions at
Saskatoon Fringe last summer. If Erik is proud of me, then I know that
I am on the right track.
Now that it is afternoon, I must set off on some tasks. I'm going to see a show with "Snow" in the title at 4:30, and then...???
July 23, 2007
F# Major
Audiences. Audiences! They're all different! Mine on the whole fall
into one of two categories: the Laughers and the Listeners. Not that
there isn't some mixing, but generally speaking, almost the entirety of
the audience at a particular show is one or the other. The Laughers
take the show as it passes by, enjoying moments in the present,
laughing at the words, or the physicality, or whatever their particular
set or neural pathways makes them likely to laugh at. The Listeners
quietly hang on to all the (admittedly enormous pile of) information as
it passes by, looking to form the bigger picture (and there is a BIG
picture in this show, I assure you), afraid (I suspect) that if they
laugh, then the gathered information will slip out and be lost.
I can never know if an audience will be primarily composed of Laughers
or Listeners based on time of day, day of week, or size of crowd. I
spend a lot of time thinking about whether a minority of Laughers in a
Listener-heavy crowd get pressured into Listening by the dominating
silence. And these are, of course, the general trends. In every crowd,
there could be the Bored, the Baffled, the Smiling Constantly, the Eyes
Closed But Possibly Listening Even More Attentively Than the Average
Listener, the Walkout, the Would Be a Walkout if I Didn't Have to Cross
the Stage to Do So (some of these have been kind enough to blog about
their experiences), the Engrossed Ten-Year-Old, the Guffawer (a Laugher
who laughs in unexpected bursts, or possibly a Listener who has given
up and must expel the information thus far collected), the Whisperer
(usually, but not always, travelling in pairs), the Family Friend, and
the Scribbler. Or yes, and the Blogger who often assumes (and this is a
natural but dangerous assumption) that their way of seeing and reacting
to the show was, is, and will be shared by all members of all possible
audiences. If performing - and especially performing this show - has
taught me anything that is useful to me as an audience member, it is
that I should own my reactions/opinions, because they are highly
individual and highly variable.
Two years ago, I did a show (called "Adieu, Friedrich Lips", it played
only at Edmonton Fringe) in which my character had a line about "the
very limits of human preception [sic]". Sometimes, with this show, I
feel like I'm playing right along the edge of it. I didn't exactly
intend to. I intended to write a show that is bigger than it is - that
is so full of detail (so, if you will, Baroque) that members of my
audience are forced to find their own path through it - to follow parts
or listen to the whole as suits them - to enjoy whatever number of
layers they would like. This is an appropriate metaphor for Baroque
music, particularly fugues: a whole made from parts in argument - music
that gives up more the more you study it. This is a show about
listening, so I wanted people to have to listen. So I expected people
to have varied reactions - to have chosen differing paths. While people
(including myself) have a lot of trouble talking about their memories
of theatre (or music) that they have just experienced, I am pretty sure
that the experiment has succeeded. But I did not expect the size of the
discrepancy:
Some people follow every word and beg for more. Some people (I don't
think that many) shut down somewhere in Scene 3 or 4, or maybe 8, and
completely ignore the rest of the show (Alison and I cannot figure out
why, and we spent three days talking about this on the drive to
Winnipeg). Some people cannot follow the character changes at all,
while some (including a visually-impaired woman in Toronto) have not
the slightest bit of trouble. Many people assume some sort of direct
and specific connection between this show and the Da Vinci Code, which
I personally put down and haven't picked up again after reading it once
(the main difference is that DVC has no moral or emotional purpose,
and...). One person didn't connect Jerome in the opening monologue to
Jerome throughout the rest of the script. One person thought I had
three main characters, not four. Two separate people in Toronto blogged
that we ought to do better sound-checks when using microphones. We
don't use microphones at all.
What I secretly wonder is whether people's perceptions of ALL shows are
quite varied, but that something about the rather extreme intensity of
mine, and the purposeful experimenting with Too Much Information makes
them want to share their reactions with me.
I've decided, though, just to perform the show. Whoever's there can
take it any way they want. (But Laughers make me sparkle just that
little bit more... like tonight. There were moments that they brought
out of me that wouldn't have been there for a quieter crowd).
Tomorrow I'm going to the beach! I'll be back for my 11:00 p.m. show!
July 21, 2007
E-flat Major
Today was a four-show day, maybe my busiest day of show viewing on the
festival circuit so far. No, that's not true. There was a day at the
end of Ottawa when I dragged my visiting girlfriend to what seemed like
8 shows, but was probably 5. But most of those I had seen before
(including my and most's perennial fave "Giant Invisible Robot") and
wanted to share with her while I could. Today I saw four new shows, two
of which CBC asked me to see and write about, so I even had the little
notebook going. Okay, it was a sheet of printer paper. But there was
one for each show.
Keir Cutler ("Teaching As You Like It", another show I've seen twice)
has been following this blog and requests on behalf of the populace
that I explain the keys a little bit more. Here's what I'm doing.
My show ("The Fugue Code") is based around a certain cycle of pieces
for keyboard by J.S. Bach called "The Well-Tempered Clavier". Bach
wrote a pair of prelude-and-fugue for each of the 24 major and minor
keys, C major, C minor, C# major, C# minor and so on, all the way up to
B minor. Twice through. Now-a-days (that's a much better phrase when
you hyphenate it, don't you think?) we think that music can be played
in any key (especially on piano), that they're all the same, just
transpositions up or down from some other key. But to Bach and his ilk
(I always, and I mean *always* think of cartoonish salt-licking elk
when I see ilk), to Bach and his silky-wigged ilk, the way their
harpsichords and organs were tuned made each key sound somewhat
different - the shortish explanation being that the distances between
some notes on the keyboard and their neighbours were larger or smaller
than others, and depending on what note you choose to begin a scale,
you come through this uneven pattern of intervals in a different order.
So, Bach (and Beethoven, and many more) felt that music in different
keys had different characters. Bach's approach was more subtle than
Beethoven's (for whom C minor WAS ALWAYS a certain kind of mood), but
in the Well-Tempered Clavier, he gives us a new mood for each key. And
these are subtly shaded gradations of feeling: moods that could not be
expressed in words, so he expressed them in preludes and in fugues. The
fugues are what interest me (and my script), because they are both a
mood and a journey, sometimes a rollercoaster of ups and downs within
the given emotional colour.
So what I'm sharing with you, in my offhanded way, is a list of my
favourite fugues in the first volume of the well-tempered clavier. No
joke. And we probably won't get through them all. E-flat major is one
of the few I've learned well enough to perform. C#-major is one I will
never be able to play, but one that I will never, and I mean *never*
tire of listening to. And there are so many more that I've studied and
learned to love. A good Bach fugue is something that reveals more the
deeper you dig, but you can also choose to just relax and enjoy the
ride. Maybe this will make what I'm trying to do in this crazy little
play of mine a little clearer...
And now I'm about to trip into bed.
July 19, 2007
D minor
The choice as always is between blogging now - fresh from the King's
Head and on my way to sleep - or in the morning, when whatever noonish
show I plan to catch is quickly looming. I made a pact with myself (but
not with the CBC) that I have to blog daily. HAVE to. That's the way it
was last year (I think) and that's the way it will be. And tomorrow
I'll start reviewing shows too. That is a pact with the CBC.
I opened tonight, a 7:30 slot with 80 paying guests! All strangers,
save my billetors. The stage, as predicted, is wide. I was nervous
coming into tonight's show, thinking about that wide stage. About how
the show would take twice as much energy. And parts did. But the
theatre's cavernousness goes beyond the width of the stage. Behind the
wooden backdrop at the back of my stage space is a whole other
theatre's worth of seating: the real theatre. I and the booth and all
of my audience are on what is just the stage for regular productions at
the Pantages. When "The Fugue Code"'s plot enters the Cathedral, we
light up the huge space behind us a bit. They use this spooky green
lighting up on the molded plaster of the theatre balconies during
preshow. When I told this to Alison on the big drive here, her eyes lit
up and she insisted that we use it in the show, if the technicians can
easily build it into the cues. Then I found out that "The Churchill
Protocol" is shining a flashlight up and around the cavernous theatre
space at the beginning of their show. Even awesomer. Anyway, this
theatre is cavernous in more ways. My dressing room is underneath, way
at the end of a long chain of little rooms, one for each show in the
venue. Halfway down are stairs down to a door to stairs down to a
low-ceilinged basement that must be as vast as the floor plan of the
seating area above it. Like all vast old theatres I've seen, there are
tiny doors for half-sized men in coveralls to enter huge boiler rooms
and toil far beneath the proscenium. I don't get a proscenium - or
rather, it's behind me.
The key I've chosen for this post seems oddly appropriate. I don't
agree that D minor is "the saddest of keys"; I've always thought
there's an agitation to it. Tonight I feel somewhere between
melancholic and stirred up by Fringe thoughts - about last year, about
this year on whose edge I sit. I went to see Rob Gee's poetry show (The
Ghengis Khan guide to Etiquette) and loved his style even more than
when I saw him last year. Before the show, Alison and I reminisced
about a certain poem (commissioned, then banned, by the BBC) on the
subject of Remembrance Day. It was even more simply, beautifully
brutally anti-war than I remembered. Now in my billetors' home office,
I am faced again with a printed quotation, uncited, sticky-tacked to
the wall: "War does not determine who is right, war determines who is
left." This feeling of being half-stirred, half-resigned fits my mood
like a glove. It's time for some more weird dreams about Unidentified
Flying Humanoids (the forefront of UFOlogy if you're interested). OK,
so there was only one dream, but the UFH in question turned out to be
my ex-girlfriend. Yeah.
I'm just going to shows tomorrow, our next is Saturday aft. I'll report back soon!
July 18, 2007
C# Major
I'm in Winnipeg! We got in last evening at 6:01 p.m., just exactly the
teensiest of too late to pick up our posters from Industry Images, the
posters that electronically beat us across middle Canada, raising
intriguing questions about the e-transport of humans, next year,
instead of driving. We got in at 6:01, but the Fringe itself was still
kicking. Alison guarded the car by an unpaid meter while I checked us
in and postered the MTC with cheap yellow posters. Non-glossy posters
actually stand out in a forest of glossy ones, especially when posted
at a wonky angle. This is old hat for me. Old wonky hat.
So we didn't actually get to my billet until after 8:00, and didn't get
unpacked and fed and settled into our respective homes until nearly
10:00. I'm staying further out than Alison along the same sweeping arm
of this prairie galaxy. My billet is my style, open-hearted and
pet-free with homebrew in the cellar. Hers appeared to be entirely
filled with over-friendly animals, which seems to be Alison's style,
the cat more than the dogs. Since May, she and I have been engaged off
and on in a discussion re the cat-dog dichotomy.
Today, the festival began! In rapid succession, we had our tech
rehearsal, showed up to perform at the Free For All, jostled our newly
updated sandwich board (now with two kinds of Four Stars!) into the
Forest on the southern tip of Old Market Square, and commenced
flyering. To address these activities in order: our venue (#4, Onstage
(or "On Stage", depending) at the Playhouse) is entirely crazily
massive. This is a stage meant to be viewed from out in the hall, a
stage for BIG shows, but here we are all on it together. The depth is
what ''m used to, but the width...Well, if you can imagine how long the
rows have to be if there are only 4 of them and the capacity is 125.
Well, it's that wide. If I can win the sightline game, this will be
insane fun. All the parts of "The Fugue Code" that involve width-wise
movement are going to be HUGE. The Free For All, as always, made me
more nervous than a full performance. All those unfocussed eyes - a sea
of children's eyes - the faces of daytime parksitting ennui. How can I
stand out against all the other 139 2-minute excerpts? I can give the
tech music to play the frame my skit, and they can forget to play it,
and I can rely on the strength of my charisma alone. Which on the whole
seemed to work alright.
Flyering led me fairly quickly to actually see a show, instead of
flyering. Lines were unpredictable - MANY peeps were out tonight, going
sometimes to unexpected shows. TJ was full, but so was Gemma Wilcox's
"The Honeymoon Period is Officially Over", perhaps due to spillover
from TJ (if one trips outside Venue 1, they will land in the lineup for
Venue 2), perhaps due to a brilliant $5 opening night ticket price,
perhaps due to typical Canadian excitement about foreign performers.
Perhaps because they clairvoyantly knew it was awesome. Then a ticket
fell into my hand for "Tale of a T-Shirt". These folks had been in
Toronto, but I only met them here. The show is unashamedly, almost
epically weird, so confident that whatever on earth it is, it IS that.
It was really, really funny, and really well performed, and really
totally wacked. And there was an audience of seemingly over a hundred,
while "Jesus in Montana" had, reports say, 20-30? BASH'D had 60? What's
going on here?
We open tomorrow (Thursday) night. 7:30, Venue 4. Yes, I've been
spieling to people and people remember "WOOL" from last year! There is
interest - even sometimes excitement. We have an awesome opening night
slot. We're not against too much competition, I think. I just don't
know what to do with 60% of my stage!
July 17, 2007
C MAJOR
I have set up my little "The Fugue Code" tour office in my Volvo's
passenger seat. Alison is driving today. We're on Day Three of the long
car trip between Toronto and Winnipeg - between two Fringes whose
schedules are squooshed together such that those of us who have to
drive between them (due to big sets or big cast-and-crews) have to
really boot it. Or, as in our case, take it at a careful but steady
pace and just accept that we'll be postering the 'Peg a day or two
later than we'd like to.
I drove all day yesterday, along the wiggly shore of The Big Lake:
Superior. Acky the Volvo and I know each other well, and I didn't want
the most dangerous part of this summer's drive compromised by any
driver-vehicle miscommunication. Highway 17 along Superior demands
constant attention and an intuitive understanding of your car's
physical properties: momentum, turn radius, tendency or tires to grip
or not at certain speeds in the rain. This is the Trans-Canada, but
this is wilderness. This is a single little ribbon of highway (as the
song goes) at the bottom of an endlessly tall stack (as the map
implies) of trees and lakes and bogs and rocks and no trees and muskeg
and island archipelago and ice. When I look at the map of northern
Ontario, I feel like the North is crushing down upon this highway, and
yesterday I could feel it. It's hard to believe that Winnipeg is
further north yet than all of this. It's hard to believe that most of
today, the third day of all-day driving, will keep us in Ontario.
Alison's driving most or all of today, so I'm sitting beside her with
Acky the Dell plugged into an adapter plugged into the cigarette
lighter thingy (does anyone actually use those to light cigarettes?).
This feels like a break. Yesterday I not only drove but plowed (slowly
- plowing by oxen) through the entirety of "The Fugue Code",
moment-for-moment, looking at staging, logic, continuity, emotion,
making a few changes and mostly learning more our sometimes divergent
ideas of what happens when I go up on that stage. Yesterday we entered
a new phase with the show, an acknowledgement of deeper places it can
and must go. Artistic integrity, it seems, comes in fits and starts. I
wrote this thing, with Alison's help, and together we built it and
polished it and mounted it on a stage. The easiest thing to do would be
to let it stand there as it is, all summer, for six festivals. But now
that a third of our tour is done (Ottawa and Toronto Fringes) and we
are driving, driving, driving, the show itself seems to have told us
that now is the time to do some more fine chiselling.
But I mix my matadors.
Winnipeg is happening quickly! We get in tonight and (hopefully) check
in right away. We poster tomorrow morning, tech tomorrow afternoon and
then run over to do a two-minute excerpt from the show in the Free for
All at Old Market Square. And we open on Thursday! No idea what time.
Better look at that schedule, but don't worry, I'll be there, with a
freshly tweaked show.
WOOL Winnipeg Fringe blog, July 2006
(as originally published on the CBC Manitoba Winnipeg Fringe website)
16. knit one pelican
July 28
I didn't see a single show today. I just tried to see Dead Like Steve
but I failed, utterly and totally. Even trying to get a password comp.
Massive failure. Oh well, I'm not feeling too care-full right now.
I took the day off of Fringe and went away, far far away with Tracy
(who I met in my fringing) to the shores of Lake Manitoba, an hour west
and a half north, where her friend has a cottage. But Tracy didn't have
the keys, so we sat on their little beach and went to the Delta Marsh
and the U of M bird research station and generally looked at pelicans
and ducks and swallows and goldfinches and fed strawberries to deer.
Deer, apparently, like strawberries. Deer, apparently, live in an
enclosed area on "the island" (actually a peninsula) in Portage la
Prairie. Tracy grew up in P-la-P. She knows this stuff.
I am exhausted and I ate too many Miss Vickies today. 11:30 (PM!) show
tonight - I hope I get a crowd. It'll be like... a campfire. My
penultimate show in the big W.
Pelicanultimate.
Good night.
15. the woven one
July 27
I was surprised at the outset of my show yesterday, or rather in the
pre-show where I now get really friendly with my crowds. And yesterday,
it *was* a crowd - of about 50-something 50-somethings. Not so bad for
a 2:30 when Chris Gibbs is lining 'em up around the block around the
block. And I was surprised, see - to have a woman in the front row with
a man beside her ask to take my picture. Next to Kilda - the bike - she
took a picture of me standing there, surprised to have my picture
taken, and said - as I reacted in some funny way - that she would send
the picture to my parents. My parents! Then, it clicked - she and her
husband didn't look familiar because I had seen them around the Fringe
grounds, but because I had seen them, many many times, at my family's
church in Toronto. They were out here for the Special Olympics (in
Brandon) and caught some Fringe on the way back. Not that they're
driving, probably. Well, maybe. I told them not to tell mom and dad
about everything in the show. *yikes*. kidding. Gosh, I'm hyper now.
Anyway, after the show I was surprised, again, by a darkly beareded
young man in a torn red t-shirt, who turns out to be someone I have
known since my earliest knowings - the younger son of good family
friends. I had no idea that he was living in Winnipeg. We went for
beer, and someone who had seen the show bought me another beer. Good
times.
I continue to get hugs from strangers at the end of the show, even though I am soaking wet.
Today I saw two shows that deserve more audience than they've been
getting: Smartha Skewheart, and The Top 10,000 Of All Time. Both
excellently performed, one funny, one spooky.
'til the next,
the Ackster
14. want five get three
July 26
What makes a five-star show? Really.
Today I got a four-star review trapped in a three-star review's
body. The format of such reviews - familiar to all of us - runs
something like the following:
- adjectival praise
- name of show, by company
- string of glowing, useful quotes, somewhat repetitive
- a turn toward more careful language
- the word "marred"
- attention drawn to an obvious feature of the show, interpreted here as a flaw
- "we're going to have to dock you for that", in different words
- three stars occupying the place of four
I wonder, if I didn't actually use the words "I am not trained as an
actor" right off the top of my show, whether I would have been
docked. Whether the reviewer would even have noticed.
In another review I was docked for other elements of carefully
considered theatrical transparency. Feh. My audiences
consider to dig it. I got more hugs today, and a few handshakes
from the less physical set. Still - handshakes from
strangers. I'm on to something.
I went to see Reinventing Miss Exciting last night, and wanted to give
Chris Neufeld a big hug too. People-being-themselves-on-stage is
my new favourite genre.
Also saw Candy From a Baby - a violent show with two ruthless child
stars, the actual kids of the criminal dad character. How do you
rehearse a show like that? A show with swearing and guns, with your own
children? It worked, whatever they did.
I'm going to spend an hour at The Exquisite Hour now. It had
better be exactly 60 minutes. Maybe I'll sleep properly tonight.
Goodnight, moon.
13. crochet
July 25
Gotta write fast, gotta go see Reinventing Miss Exciting.
My 7:30 show tonight really turned a corner. I was there, they
were there, we were all together, pacing worked, text articulation
worked, and I FELT it, and they GOT it, and a bunch of people hugged me
at the end. That's new. Now I suggest that the audience
hugs me after the show and they did. The performers, and the
strangers. Wicked wicked wicked.
I've hit my stride, halfway through this run.
STILL WAITING FOR A FREE PRESS REVIEW!! I'm NOT SHOUTing. Sorry.
12. knit the knit knit knit
July 24
Had my third show o' eight this aft, and now I'm at that time when I've
JUST missed a bunch of shows that I wanted to see, and a few shows that
I hadn't considered seeing until I noticed that I had missed
them. I might or might not be able to get tickets for The Power
of Ignorance.
Fringe is like this. Somedays, no shows seem to happen.
I went to Audible today, though, riding on the reputation of the Saucy
Fops and the very niceness of them all.
Incredi-frickin-bibble. There is a section of choreographed sign
language that is abso-fuerk-lutely gorgeous. It's funny how I
keep seeing shows with themes that I have been explicitly thinking
would make good shows, like sound (Audible), or theoretica physics
(sort-of Fill the Void, but more a show that I saw at the Ottawa Fringe
when I happened to be out there for a program at the National Arts
Centre last month).
My show today was relaxed. Maybe too relaxed. Naturally, I
am at risk of becoming over-familiar with my material. Oh well,
another day, another head-dunk. (If you don't understand
that...come to see the show!)
Now to the great Gibbs lineup.
And I might see Burden of Poof AGAIN.
11. July 23rd, the second
July 23rd
Saw Fill the Void as my late show. Fantastic style - it flowed
like standup comedy, but had so much more depth, and so much more of
Phil than if he had a standup persona. Jonah von Spreecken of The
Excursitionists afterward said that he learned so much about Phil
watching Fill the Void, it's like we were at a party, late, and Phil
was doing most of the talking, sounding off about everything he feels
he has a right to sound off about. This makes me think of what
Amy Salloway (Herschel Gertz) said about my show, that it's (and I
paraphrase here) like I have written myself a place where I can be
myself, in all my eccentricity. Like I have written myself an
island to live on, for 70 minutes at least. 5:15 tomorrow, I get
to visit there again.
This is very much the headspace that I'm in. I keep seeing
one-human shows in which someone reveals part of themself, or the the
little core of themself (this is, I think, the essence of clown), but I
keep wanting them to go that one step further and just be themselves,
on stage. But that's just where I'm at, I think. Last year
I wanted to see more comedies about musicology (long story).
Got my first review, and took it more personally (the good *and* the bad) than I would if my show weren't me playing me.
Lator
10. knit none purl none
July 23, the first
Today I got a great plug from Amy Salloway at the 12:45er of So Kiss Me
Already, Herschel Gertz. A plug from a clear master of the
one-human storytell! I followed up with handbills in smirky
silence. Still no reviews, though. And I cannot chalk
another sidewalk, not until tomorrow.
I realised something, sitting in Herschel Gertz. I don't know why
I realized it exactly there, but I realised that I feel
vulnerable. And not just because that show and those three I
metioned yesterday kind of cut through in the way that good theatre
should, but because - I realized about that realization - my show IS
vulnerable. I am being ME on stage, me playing me, telling you -
some of whom I know, and those who I know I barely know - about one of
the very strangest times of my life. And every hand I bill with a
handbill, every walk beside my sidewalk chalk, is invited to come and
look at me, being me, vulnerable for another 70 minutes. I didn't
expect this. This isn't the same as composing. It's not BY
me, it IS me.
More later. Going to see Burden of Poof.
Ackster.
9. knit eight purl twelve
July 22
I have yet to be reviewed. Rumour is (from where - flyering is a
blur) that I'll have one in the Free Press tomorrow. This rumour
came from somewhere in the beer tent. Then I mentioned my
non-reviewed state while flyering a lineup for Criteria (which I then
saw, and liked) and one young guy receiving my glossy four-by-six
declared himself to be "the enemy". When my friends joined me in
the line I introduced them to this new acquaintance as such, but only
in the theatre when the guy whipped out a coil-bound notebook did they
figure out what I meant.
Keep your eyes on the Free Press.
I have been flyering - a lot. It took me an hour to go through
one beer tent this aft because I talk to EVERYONE. My spiel is
getting smooth. Today it was:
"WOOL is a one-man, one-bicycle show about a time that the bike and I
lived nearly alone for six months on a Scottish island". They
like that. I get smiles. Sometimes they assume it's a
comedy, because of my hi-larious poster image. I tell them, it's
a mega-story: a story made of fragments of other stories, true stories
that like all true stories don't always have a point. The point
is that I am telling them.
I have been chalking WOOL all over the ground. Today a few other
companies hit the chalk pretty hard too, most notably D.A.V.E. I
will have to find another way to stand out. I wish Kilda (the
bike) weren't locked in the theatre, I could do stunt things.
Like riding on the streets. And home. Instead of taking the
bus.
I had my second performance. A nooner. Not a bad crowd - 29
I think - and somewhere not far from the palm of my hand, at
times. I felt a bit more in control than with the first
show. I am no longer nervous, just... there. During my
second scene on the bicycle I thought exactly that: I thought, "I am
here." And the show kept going, just fine. Today the show
was 71 minutes long.
I have been seeing lots and lots of shows. Like, twelve?
Still going, I plan on an 11:45-er tonight. Yesterday I saw three
shows in a row that hit closer to home than expected: Josie With the
Toes, Can't Get Started, and For the Love of God. Especially the middle
one, which, exactly as promised on the poster, make unendurable
loneliness funnier than previously experienced. FTLOG needs more
people to see it! Go! Go! The show I went to was half
occupied by friends and family of the two writer/actors. They
kept thanking me for having come. Josie needs more crowds
too. Cindy-Loo Who has grown up to be as jaded as me.
But everywhere I looked yesterday, I saw whats and hows but not enough whys. I think that was just where I was at.
Today I saw... I forget. Criteria; Kathryn: Starring as
Herself, at Last; 2112; Scratch. Tomorrow? Another day off,
and then I've got my 6-day run of shows.
Keep on keeping on. Oh, and go see WOOL.
8. Purled
July 20, post-show
I opened tonight. I had maybe 60 people in the audience - a good,
friendly, engaged half-house. The show was clearly grabbing
them. The show breathed, and yet it was exactly the intended
length. There was one sound miscue and a group of three lighting
miscues, but I covered for them. My chalk drawings were little
haphazard. My little lines representing disused farm fields
crossed over the river. But it was fine.
This is a really good start.
I had a long long chat with Amy from So Kiss Me Already, Herschel Gertz
about my show afterward, as we ate food truck food on a postered picnic
table in the triangle of Market Square. It is so so nice to be
taken so seriously. This is what I hoped - to have the show be a
departure point for me and whoever to *keep talking*.
I'm beat. But I'm going to see the nice young'uns in Stuck
anyhow. My days now start at 11:00 p.m. and go 'til 2:00
a.m. If I get enough sleep, it's okay if it's shifted.
I feel like I've been carrying a sheep around. My new expression is that I'm "zonied out".
I have no clue what shows I'm seeing tomorrow. I'll report back.
goo-night
7. knit knit knit knit knit knit knit knit knit
July 20
I open tonight I open tonight I open tonight I open tonight I open tonight
I slept in. I ate at a Vietnamese buffet. I breathed - a
lot. I did a long vocal warmup. I read the script, I spoke
the script. I took a bus. I have been flyering like a
banshee, sometimes chatting with a potential audient for a while.
In my mind, a 10-minute conversation is worth a ticket sold. I
met the director of the Orlando Fringe. I continued to get no
attention from newspapers. I wrote "WOOL" in white chalk, all
over the Fringe grounds, on bricks, on sidewalk, on walls.
Sometimes, I said what it meant.
Now...?
I get into the theatre in 55 minutes.
Wish my leg broken.
Acky
6. Knit eight purl none
July 19
Free for All! Free for Alls are strange: we all ("all") do
two-minute scenes from or plugs for ("for") our shows, outdoors
("free"), and... let's just say it's hard to get across the zeitgeist
of a show, the gestalt if you will, in two minutes. A two-minute
excerpt can come across as somewhat inconsequential, without any of the
dramatic arc around it. I also have a theory that humour only
transmits over so large a radius. I developed this theory in a
tent at the [cigarette company] Jazz Festival in Toronto one year,
standing at the back of the tent. I could clearly hear the
offhanded jokes made by the bandleader between tunes. The
amplification was fine, but - none of the jokes meant anything by the
time they got to me. I heard words in sequences that were funny
*analytically*, but I could not laugh. The same thing happened
today, because I was mostly postering around the back of Market Square
during the Free-for-All. I just heard words, for the most
part. Maybe I have to have my brain tuned.
I told a story from WOOL, from near the end of the show, about going to
the loneliest island I have ever seen: Gometra, population 8, off of
Ulva, population 25, off of Mull, population 2,400, off of mainland
Scotland. Sitting on a beach there, I found a bottle with a
message in it - but if you want to know what that message said, you'll
have to come see the show!
Then I lost about [unknown] hours to postering. I have no idea
what time it is. I'd better... [unknown].
I open tomorrow at 7:45. Tonight I'm going to see JOE: The
Perfect Human, The Excursionists, and Art's Heart. Good times.
Oh yeah, JOE totally transmitted humour across Market Square. So
did "So Kiss Me Already, Herschel Gertz". I would go see that
show just based on the poster!
Lator.
Acky.
5.Knit three purl two
July 18
It might be worth mentioning that I don't knit. My poster image,
the "WOOL" made of wool that is suspended across my head, was made
possible by the help of a certain knitting motorcyclist within my
circle of friends, and it was actually crocheted. There is no
knitting in my show - it is metaphorical.
In the sense that: a story is knit from words, and a play is knit from
stories, and I knit yarns about sheep, and bicycles, and loneliness,
that, together, like life, make a cloth of all emotional colours.
Um...the play itself explains that less awkwardly.
If I knew how to knit, I would probably know that the pattern "knit
three purl two" produces a repulsive, off-balanced fabric - or else a
woolen fractal. As it is, I assume that it knits me a...thneed.
I teched today, July 18, in my venue (#2, "MTC Up the Alley") and
worked out some pretty awesome, subtle lighting cues. Most of
them are naturally inspired, subtle like the passing of the
months. April to June steadily brightens, warmly; from August to
October, it dims coldly. There are some...unnatural
interruptions, where the lighting goes more psychological. I'm
very happy with it, BUT the problem with being so subtle is that I
didn't get to run the play in the space. I ran...chunks. I
researched angles. Angles. Don't sit in row two.
4.Knit three purl one
July 16
Afterthought.
I promised to tell you about WPEG's* appearances in my dream
world. There is a strange reversal here, verging on the uncanny -
or verging away from the canny, as it may be.
The first time I visited this fair city was in the August of 2000, and
I took the train, from Toronto. That trip takes thirty hours,
twenty-eight of which are in Ontario. And then, it's suddenly
flattish, but forested, and then it's flattish and not forested, and
then it's FLAT and open, and then, there's Winnipeg, wee in the way
distance, and then, an hour or so later, you're there. As I
mentioned yesterday, I was fascinated at that time that you can see a
metropolis - of sorts - in a glance.
Then, in 2002/03, during my year-and-ten-day solo European trip, I
suddenly started thinking about the Canadian west. In daydreams,
thought-flashes, full fledged dreams.
I had a dream about Calgary, where I had never been (it
was...windy. And empty. The Calgary tower was...awkward.);
I had flashbacks from Regina. Then, on the night before my job at
the Druimnacroish Hotel on the Isle of Mull (the setting for WOOL) was
to start, I had a vivid dream about WPEG in which I revisited
everything I had seen in the summer of 2000: Osborne Village, Little
Italy, the museum, the HI hostel. Work was to start at 10:00 a.m.
the next day, and I woke up AT 10:00 a.m., exactly, and stumbled
through the back door of the hotel, my enormous bootlaces dragging
behind me. It was fine. Unfortunately I had to cut this
anecdote from the show. I also cut a reference to Colonsay,
Saskatchewan ("The Isle of the Prairies") that would have played well
in SKTOON.
And THEN, now, I'm opening my show, about Scotland, in WPEG - a show that could have opened with WPEG opening my time on Mull.
Freaky.
* "Winnipeg"
3. Knit Two Purl Two
Well, I'm here. In Winnipeg - a 14-hour solo drive from
Edmonton. I broke the trip clean in half with the help of a swift
kick by Regina. If I had thought to jot notebook entries (of the
sort that pepper my show) throughout the 2 days of my journey, they
would have gone something a little like this:
July 15
- 9:30 a.m. loaded up the car, big bin in the back, bike on the rack,
mops in the back seat. This was a poor choice. My mop
heads, all three of them, smell like a potent combination of Mr. Clean
and mildew. If that is at all possible. The collective
smell is something like, or IS, ammonia. Ammonia may or may not
be the smell of Clean and Dirty fighting it out in my back seat.
- 1:00 p.m. peed in prairie shrubbery. Gorged - a bit - on
Ryvita, salt toffee and apples. Prairies are nicer when they
don't go by at 110 kph.
- 2:30 p.m. arr. Saskatoon. Attempt to figure out exactly *how*
problematic the venue layout is to my show. Failure.
Attempt to infiltrate the Broadway Theatre to get a visual on the
theatre. Failure. Broadway has a lot of nice places to
eat. Too nice. I retreat with a Subway sandwich.
- 4:00 p.m. the smell of "ammonia" threatens to overwhelm me. I open the windows, drowning the sound of Mozart's Requiem.
- 6:00 p.m. arr. Regina, later than expected. I stay with a
modern dancer. I observe a three-person fire dance in a garden
with an outdoor fireplace. Not a firepit - a fireplace.
With a chimney. We go to Bushwakker brewpub and I drink a pint of
Honey Thistle Wit and a take a 12-pack of 650mls to join me in the long
Winnipeg evenings. Life gets better by precisely two degrees.
July 16
- 10:00 a.m. I set my car clock to Winnipeg time. 11:00
a.m. I will not get to Winnipeg at the time expected. The
mopheads have been relegated to the trunk. I can STILL SMELL THEM.
- 2:30p.m./3:30p.m. I find a fine, locally-run fried chicken
take-out just past the Manitoba border. Virden, MB. Do it!
- 4:00/5:00 p.m. I pass a truck on a two-lane stretch and Kilda (the
bike) swishes up and out, back and down. Kilda remembers the long
road from Toronto to Edmonton, two summers ago, and the turbulence
along this same stretch of road.
2. Knit One Purl Two
July 14
Well, as soon as I get Acky the Volvo Sedan loaded up, I can hit the
road for Winnipeg - me and three mops and a big Tupperware bin and 8
bike lights and my wee home office and Kilda, my bike. Normally,
I would be bringing Kilda with me so that we could ride around
together, but this time, she has a special function: Kilda is most of
my set. Kilda is also nearing retirement, I fear. Now that
I have been really looking at her closely, under stage lights, she
appears to be losing functionality as a ride-bike, just as she is
gaining stardom as a stage-bike.
Kilda, so you know, is the very bike that served as my only mode of
transportation on the Isle of Mull, in the summer of 2003. I
bought her the day before I left Edinburgh to spend six months on that
island, and I planned to sell her before I returned to Canada.
But, we became...entwined. There's something special about
Kilda. Other than her twin in the bikeshop, I have never seen a
bike with similar handlebars: a loop on each side. Not ram's
horns: moose ears. The loops make essentially two levels of
handlebar on each side: one for leaning down, and braking if need be,
one for sitting up tall along roads where the need to brake is less
likely. In Scotland, the lower handlebars were for the downhills,
the upper handlebars for the uphills. 50% and 50%. No,
that's wrong. I lived near-ish sea level. Everything was
above me.
I don't know what Kilda and I clocked on Mull, but it was a LOT of
mileage. We had one 100-mile trip down to the Isle of Iona, and
around it, and back by a different route. Miles are different on
Mull, too. Longer. Like they were measured from the air,
not taking account of bumps in the road. One mile forward, but
200 meters up.
So at the end, I couldn't leave her behind. By ridiculous chance,
the cheapest flights home (on Globespan) also had free bike
stowage! They didn't pack her up or anything. They walked
her onto the plane, and presumably rested her on her kickstand for 7
hours, and then the Toronto ground crew walked her back off the
plane. With a fragile sticker across her handlebars like a red
bow on a baby bunny.
Kilda isn't much like a baby bunny anymore. We've been through
some hard times together. Some falls (one iPod-induced, as I
always feared would happen), and we rode together through much of last
winter in Edmonton, me in ski goggles and she in studded tires, a
half-hour each way between school and home, across the High Level
Bridge.
Probably, in the fall, I will get have to get a new bike - or have
enough work done on Kilda that it won't really be her anymore. I
think this show is Kilda's final hoorah.
Well, I'd better corral the props & etc. I'm off to Regina
tonight, to stay with a dancer friend and stock up the microbrew
supplies, and then I'll be hitting Winnipeg with the force of a
thousand bikes on Sunday.
'til the next, Alex
1. Knit One Purl One
July 13
Just had my last of four preview shows of WOOL in Edmonton before I hit
the road for Winnipeg. Yes, *four*. Why so many?
Clearly, I am taking this tour very seriously. This is, of
course, my first Fringe tour, but it is also my playwriting and solo
show debut. And, as the show states very clearly right off the
top, I am not trained as an actor. I am not as consistent as a
trained actor, in terms of levels of theatrical energy and
commitment. And it takes me longer, I suspect, than a trained
actor to figure out what works and what doesn't. I have to shake
my sillies out now, before I get to Winnipeg (henceforth referred to as
WPEG), so that I can hit the beginning of my run of *twenty* shows with
the same force as the middle bunch, and the last bunch.
The other reason is that I rented a REAL theatre space, lights and all,
to rehearse the show, so I thought I'd might as well get some public
(not that much of it) in to see the thing while I was in an appropriate
venue. I had to rehearse on a real theatre floor, with real
lighting, because so much of the show depends on chalk drawing on the
floor. I needed to know if it would work. It works!
There's a trick, though. Angles. They will keep
changing. From my 120 seat venue in WPEG to my 220 seater in
SKTOON to the 170-bum 200-degree swoop in EDMO, the angles of the show
will keep changing. Much as they change from night to
night. I am not trained as a floor artist... But I'm
learning quickly.
So, my rehearsal period is officially over. Tomorrow I pack,
Saturday and Sunday I drive. I'm over-nighting in Regina for the
sake of the beer. My rehearsal period is over but the show
doesn't open for a WEEK. For a week, the show goes internal - line
runs, mind-staging, concept-lighting, SFX theorems, and periods of
intense staring at the WPEG theatre plan, until I actually get into the
space on the 18th. Then... angles.
As must be clear to you by now, my head is more full of logistics right
now than it is of artistic things. Perhaps my other task for this
week is to refocus my emotions about the material. It is, after
all, a play about me - and yet, I've discovered that in bringing a time
of my life (from three years ago) into a one-man play, I have had to
step quite far away from the subjective feelings of those memories at
times, so that I can judge what works on the stage. But, of
course, the subjectivity seeps back in, and I have found myself
returning to some of the habits that I had when I lived in Scotland
three years ago - habits of the Alone - talking to myself out loud,
getting snippets of language or music caught in my brain for entire
days, talking to animals out loud (in Scotland, sheep; here, robins and
rabbits), intense interest in things that are small and slow and
simple. I wonder if this is me revisiting my aloneness on the
Isle of Mull, or if this is my aloneness NOW. What, after all, is
more alone than a one-man play, self-directed, on solo tour, ABOUT the
most alone time in my life?
Alone, but not necessarily lonely. I am absolutely stoked about
all the cool Fringers that I will meet on this tour - both the
audience, and the performers who do this *every year*. Last year
I did a show only in one fringe (Edmonton) and I was so inspired by the
touring Fringers that I met in the evenings that... here I am.
Doing it myself. Making the Fringe my summer job. Maybe, or
maybe not being able to LIVE (in the financial sense) off of something
that I would do out of love alone, and getting to travel while doing
it. I can think of no better way to spend a summer...
'til the next,
Alex