Day One: Glasgow - A Walk With Death

Photo: Happy 23rd birthday, Adrienne!

On the train from Glasgow to Carlisle. The girls are all making "awwww" noises at the nursing sheep on the hillside.

Okay, something is seriously up with the airlines. Three of the last four flights I have taken have been seriously delayed. On the tramac in Newark we waited a good hour and a half to take off. Nothing like the six hours we waited to board the flight to Lousiville, but aggravating nonetheless when the pilot kept chiming in with promises of "10 minutes" then (15 minutes later) "5 minutes" followed by (a half hour later) "20 minutes." A passegnger was chided to return to his seat or we would miss our place in the take-off queue. How? Does the airline have hall monitors who report on such things?

On numerous occasions in the past tne years, Toni and I have dined at the Garden State Diner, located in Concourse C. It's a diner, there's diner food, and previous the worst service you could find anywhere. But when you want an actual sandwich and your other options are the Clown or Nathan's Famous, we opt for wet fries that take forty-five minutes to arrive.

Photo: An infant cemetery turned into a car park?

HOWEVER, they have really gotten their act together. We walked up - all seven of us - and were seated right away. And it was crowded. Our server met us in two minutes, took all our orders, and they came out fast. We were able to relax, and catch our flight in plenty of time ... more time than we accounted for because of the aforementioned delays. But at least we digested our fried food well.

Z. had a Trans-Atlantic Freak-Out last night (hey, that's the name of my new album, Trans-Atlantic Freak-Out!) She'd fallen asleep, but kept waking herself up, kicking MP and whining terribly. It last maybe twenty minutes, she was just inconsolable until she finally fell asleep. Toni reminded me that the exact same thing happened a year ago, last spring, when we last made this voyage. Weird. Just too much stress, exhaustion, the adrenaline rush of an anticipated trip winding down, turbulence, cramped space (the seats have gotten smaller for her, you know) and who knows what else.

Arriving was a great relief, and we soon settled into what I hope is a regular part of our journey together - not rushing to do anything. We sat around, drinking coffee for a while before we set off to catch a bus. It's Adrienne's birthday today, and sister remembered to bring a present. There's too many bags and people to dash off anywhere, we almost left Toni's bag on the first bus. Heck, we almost left my passport at home.

Photo: The hat is a dead giveaway - it's Sylvester McCoy!

The kids are awesome travelers. At least, they are at this age, I hope they don't lose that. We talk about all the things we see, and don't linger over stuff they don't express much interest in. And hey, today was a walk with death.

Any trip to a British cathedral is a festival of dead people, and I'm not just talking about the torture victim hanging from the tree. There are monuments to fallen soldiers, dead bodies uunder plaques under your feet, and tombs all over the place. But St. Mungo's is a very special place. Not only is there there cathedral (featuring Blackadder Aisle, but it's not what you think) but next to it is the St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art, which we unfortunately did not have time to really explore - though Toni did take a moment to tie a ribbon to the Couty Tree to remember Calvin and to give the tour some good juju.

Photo: A shining Necropolis on a hill.

And then there is the Necropolis, a cemetery set into, running up and set high on a hill overlooking Glasgow. Hundreds of prominent Glaswegans are resting there, including the William Miller, the man who wrote Wee-Willie Winkie.

(Toni keeps asking me if I am watching the scenery. Everyone else is asleep, but me, I've got to keep an eye on the livestock.)

Before we had even begun the trek up the hill, we came upon a small plot dedicated to dead children. The stone reads, "I will not forget you ... I have held you in the palm of my hand." - Isaiah 49:15 and there were a large number of soft animals and other soggy mememtoes left there. That was an auspicious sight, and also very sweet.

My name is Toni, and I will be your Cruise Director ...

In a day and a half we begin the UK tour. I have not had time to blog recently, I am aware that most of these posts are just reefers to obnoxious YouTube videos or newspaper articles. I got no time for anything else, I have been juggling three projects at work with a number of other personal and artistic endeavors which may or may not be interesting. May if any of them come to any kind of fruition I can take a moment to reflect on them.

The trip, however, I will be documenting as much as possible, maybe even with pictures, who knows. I do like recording how the performances go, wherever they are, and this should be just fascinating.

But it's not just me going on this trip. Kelly will stage manage - and Toni is coming with the kids. And as if that weren't enough, so is my mother-in-law Connie and Toni's sister Adrienne. So, every plane, every train, every bus will have seven of us getting on and getting off.

This would concern me. But like my father before me, I married someone who is as good at making plans as I am at being largely oblivious to what is going on two feet from my nose or where the hell I am. Pictured above is an actual binder with tabs for every day of the journey. She has listings for everywhere we are staying, everywhere I am performing, all of our boarding info and tips on where we should spend what is actually going to a large amount of free time ... at least for everyone except me and Kelly.

Mom takes good care of us. I am a man who calls his wife Mom.

Spaces

9 Jun: Carlisle, England
St. Cuthbert's Church @ 7 pm

12 Jun: London, England
Royal College of Physicians @ 2 pm

14 Jun: Lincoln, England
Terry O'Toole Theatre @ 8 pm

16 Jun: Birmingham, England
Queen Elizabeth Hospital Post Grad Suite @ 2 pm

18 Jun: Lurgan, Northern Ireland
Lurgan Town Hall @ 7 pm

20 Jun: Exminster, England
Exminster Friends Centre @ 7 pm

22 Jun: Plymouth, England
Plymouth Salvation Army Hall @ 7 pm

Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:

"The cure for grief is motion."

A palliative perhaps, but not a cure.

"P" as in "Pneumonia" ...

Looking back over this blog you can locate the various points where I realize I had unwittingly (as opposed to intentionally) either emulated or stolen a gag or turn of phrase for use in I HATE THIS. Here's another one.

The entire Mailing List phone thing is straight out of Nichols and May. Now Henrik will tell me he always knew that and assumed I did it on purpose. The truth is, the phone gag doesn't belong to them, it belongs to an entire generation of comedians who made hay out of the emasculating power of the phone, whether speaking to your mother, Ma Bell, or trying to figure out from your best friend exactly what you did last night ("for God's sake - don't fizz.")

In most of these bits, made famous by Bob Newhart or Shelly Berman, you only heard the man, descending further into Hell during every pause which indicated the other person speaking. Nichols and May got to share both parts, Elaine May playing either the officious operator from Hell, or the angelic corproate savior, while Mike Nichols volunteered every shred of his dignity for a dime.

Listening to that routine last night, I didn't think anything of it until I heard something like my own voice say, "Is there someone else there I can speak to?"

The hold music gag, of course, is pure Simpsons. But I always knew that.

Just another Friday morning at UH

So I'm sitting in a waiting room as a nurse goes off to find out where I am supposed to be. My appointment was scheduled for that moment, but the office I had arrived at was dark with a sign clearly reading Open - 8:30 AM.

I had called yesterday to double-check the site - it had changed twice in the last two weeks. I check "outgoing calls" on my cellphone, and hit speed-dial for the number I had used yesterday afternoon.

VOICE: Yeah?

DAVID: Yeah, I have a 7:30 appointment with Dr. Seftel for a vasectomy, can you tell me where I am supposed to be?

VOICE: (pause) This is a restaurant.

I had phoned Tommy's.

I Hate This Book

That joke never gets tired.



Here's the news: SANDS has been working with me to publish a script of IHT in the UK. Hopefully, it will be available at all the tour stops next month. It's not really meant to be used as a play script. Instead, I hope it may be of some comfort to those who are coping with new grief, or trying to come to terms with the world around them, when it insists on moving on and they don't want to. That kind of thing.

These are pencil sketches of some of the illustrations that will be included - these are unfinished, by Cat let me post them, anyway. The top is the cover (which will be color) and this one is the last image.



I like how the feet are slightly exaggerated in the first, and the hands in the last.

Of course, Cat created the poster and head-toppers for the famous "Pin the Hair on Hansen" game at Dave's 35th Birthday Party.

about that site ...

So I got this domain name, see?

It's not a terribly exciting website, just a big online resume - though it does include a lot of info about the show. And I haven't updated it since last summer. The reason for this is Toni got me a beautiful new Mac to replace the G3 tower I acquired back in 98. The oldest computer I'd ever had, so much of it was obsolete I was aching for a new model.

However, once I had retired the screen and keyboard to the attic (I kept the tower networked to get all necessary files and docs from it) I realized how fricking expensive it was going to be to get new copies of Dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc. for the Puma (or whatever cat this OS is called.) I finally decided, as inelegant as it looks, to have two computers next to each other, the pretty one and the hideous one.

Some things are worth saving two thousand dollars in software. Besides, I've tried the new Dreamweaver. It's the same.

davidhansen.org updates - including the UK tour - can be found here.

Calvin doesn't want me to do this show anymore.

I always, always, keep the clothes with me. I never check the sweater or the green Chuck's - the original jeans, alas, went the way of all things a long time ago. They are my costume, they are what I was wearing the day my son was born.

Today, of course, I checked them - there was so much stuff to carry home, among four individuals, I just didn't think. And for the first time in my life, I have lost a bag. Sure, it may turn up, someone may have taken it by mistake - there were so many red bags on that flight that looked similar.

But this incident, coupled with the five hour delay on Thursday, and the number of other things going on in my head lately ... I mean, it makes me not a little nervous about Great Britian.

UPDATE: Found it. Someone accidentally took it to Willoughby. Nice town.

Kentuckianaland

Lovely performance last night for the Consoling Parents Support Group in Louisville, KY. Our hosts have been really wonderful, among other things they brought in dinner from this great local seafood grill place before the performance, and there was childcare for the kids who were there. Z&O had the chance to play with other children for the first time in a few days.

Due to a last minute conflict, Nick couldn't join us to run slides and sound - but he did spend a lot of time in the past couple of weeks updating the entire PowerPoint program so (ta-da) Toni was able to run it herself. Her connection to the show (which she must have seen a dozen times already) made her a little nervous about it, but she exectued everything perfectly.

The performance was held in the Beargrass Christian Church - one of the best spaces I have ever worked in! They recently expanded their facilities, adding a new, state-of-the-art sanctuary. The "stage" was solid hardwood, they have two large projection screens, and automatic shades to cover the stained glass windows. The sound system was okay.

I have found I have three kinds of audiences. Theater or "Fringe" audiences (which I have not performed for in almost three years), medical professionals (nurses, midwives, doctors, etc.) and bereaved parents and the people how love them. I usually know what to expect from any of these audiences. People there for theater find it "interesting." Medical practioners, even those who are affcted by it (and most are) treat it like a learning experience - and don't laugh. And the bereaved see themselves in large parts of the story and gasp, laugh or groan in expected (or not) places.

Last night was different. I knew it was a bereavement organization. Turnout was modest, which can effect reaction. Also, I was not wearing my glasses. This messed up the second line of the show, I said it but muffed it a little, which freaked me out - until I realized I was using part of my brain to focus, to make out faces. So I relaxed, stopped trying to do that, and actually felt a strange peace and relaxation I don't normally feel performing this show, because I had nothing to go on - I could look straight at them without wondering if they were sad, terrified, or just hated me.

But they were very quiet. I think Amy did the most laughing, and - I think, I can't be sure, I couldn't see - her 13 year-old daughter. I was surprised. Maybe concerned. A little worried.

We held a talkback after, and Toni got to join me onstage, which is alwasy good - betterm really - than me doing it on my own. People always have questions for her. And there were a few. Very few. The talkback lasted maybe five minutes, there was mostly a lot of soft talking and pauses.

I had an explanation afterwards, at the reception. What I was stunned to learn was how many of the audience members were fresh in their grief. I met so many women who had lost children in the last six to eighteen months. No wonder their response was muted, they were still in this, deep in the middle of the feelings, the pain, the confusion I go over in my show. In fact, by the end of the play, Toni and I were further along than a number of those in attendance.

I am glad I get the chance, after each performance, to meet so many of the people who come to see it, I would find it very dizzying and uncomfortable to just go backstage, change and leave. I think this is why New York was so difficult. I'd do the show, change, and hit the sidwalk, and everyone would be gone, onto the next thing. Even in Minnesota there were usually a few hanging back to say something.

This has been a very good experience, the folks here have been too kind. Even the hotel's really good (big ups, Courtyard Marriott.) There's even talk of returning, and I think we'd all like that.

I think I'm dumb

Sometimes my performance is part of a larger conference. Here in Louisville, it's actually a separate event which was orchestrated by Amy M. to coincide with a conference. Today there is a day-long event, Postpartum Depression and Infant Development, at Baptist Hospital. The keynote speaker was Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, and it was our desire to get to see him speak.

In brief, we succeeded, in spite of a dear lack of sleep and several wrong turns on our drive to the hospital. Wow, what an incredible man. In short, his was a plea that we basically need to change our medical establishment, our education establishment, our government and our society for the sake of children and their parents - and of course, he's right - but his talk made you believe, as if for the first time, that this is necessary, important, and possible.

Attending such events, as part of my travels presenting IHT, makes me feel how little I have actually picked up, or how few advantages I have taken, presented with the possibility of hearing such lectures, or meeting such people. Sorry, I don't mean to make it all about me, but you know, it is all about me.

I don't just mean to imply I am merely thick or feckless, it is all irritating how many times I have attempted to accomplish something, take advantage of an opportunity, and I end up getting smacked with a migraine or just miss the bus. Today I was terribly grateful, after last night's ordeal, to actually make it to the church on time.

Or the hospital. Tonight I need to make in to the church on time. And I need to decide if I do the show in street clothes with glasses, The Sweater without contacts, or The Sweater with glasses. I really do not want to do the show in The Sweater and glasses, I don't think that looks right. I have done the show in a T-shirt before, but that was because it was sweltering and not because I am a bonehead.

Schmuck, me.

Welcome to Louisville. And thank you, Continental Airlines, for making me and my family sit around Concourse D for five hours, waiting for a delayed flight from LaGuardia. What a lovely evening.

The big shock upon our descent into Kentucky was the discovery that although I have plenty of contact lenses, they are all for my right eye. It will be a very blurry show for me tomorrow.

I mean, today. This is a Heineken. Cheers!

Free Performance in Louisville, KY

Consoling Parents Support Group
In partnership with the Kentuckiana Postpartum Coalition

Parents, Family & Friends Conference
Thursday, May 10 - 6:30 to 9 p.m.
Keynote Session: Men and Women Grieve Differently

Dr. Jim England, Chaplain, Hospice and Palliative Care of Louisville
Breakout Sessions: Parents’ Panel - moving through the experience of infant/young child loss and/or postpartum depression
Family & Friends Group A - supporting people experiencing the loss of an infant or young child
Family & Friends Group B - supporting people experiencing postpartum depression

Theatrical Presentation
Friday, May 11 - 7 to 8:45 p.m.
Performance: I Hate This – A Play Without the Baby

An award-winning play written and performed internationally by David Hansen of The Cleveland Theater. Reception to follow.

Events will be held at Beargrass Christian Church
4100 Shelbyville Road, Louisville, Ky.

These events are free and open to the public. Donations welcome.

To register, call (502)629-1234. Childcare available if you register by May 7th. Call 502-896-1161 or email Jenell@beargrass.org.

Cleveland! We're Number 2.

Alas, yesterday Spencer Tunick photographed over 18,000 naked people in Mexico City, destroying the previous North American record of 2,754 set in Cleveland on June 26, 2004.

Photos of the Cleveland shoot, and my and Toni's radio diary are still available on my website. (Warning: Naked people.)

Breakfast conversation

Zelda is eating Berry Burst Cheerios. Dad is drinking coffee and reading the NY Times.

ZELDA: What are you reading?
DAD: The Queen is having dinner with the President today.
ZELDA: President George Washington?
DAD: No ... George Washington was the first president, we have a different preseident today.
ZELDA: What is his name?
DAD: Today the president is George Bush.
(Long pause)
ZELDA: Most people think George Bush is stupid.

Seven dates in Great Britain

We received our itinerary the other day for the SANDS UK tour of I HATE THIS.

If you know anyone in the British Isles who would like to attend a performance, the SANDS website includes phone numbers for booking.

9 Jun: Carlisle, England @ 7 pm
12 Jun: London, England @ 2 pm
14 Jun: Lincoln, England @ 8 pm
16 Jun: Birmingham, England @ 2 pm
18 Jun: Belfast, Northern Ireland @ 7 pm
20 Jun: Exminster, England @ 7 pm
22 Jun: Plymouth, England @ 7 pm

As you might imagine, this will be one for the books. I only wish the kids were a bit older so they could remember it, I imagine Zelda will, a little. It will be quite a caravan; Kelly will be the stage manager, and will be joined by not only Toni and the kids, but Toni's mother and sister. There will be a lot of child care to go around.

With the exception of London, I have never been to any of these cities, let alone Northern Ireland. There will be lots of pictures.

What are we supposed to say?

Working backwards, let me say the performance went over very well. Most appearances get planned maybe ssix months to a year in advance. Many of my appearances have been for medical health professionals, nurses, midwives and doctors. This was one of those.

My appearance at this conference in Warrensville Heights this past Friday was arranged by Carrie C. - the original Nurse Angel. She is the first nurse I portray in the show (as opposed to the resident and midwife, who were present when we got the news) the one who breezes in like a whirlwind, rattles off a list of awful decisions we need to make, and then breezes out again.

Her role is sometimes misunderstood. She's not meant to come off as callous, but she did have the unevniable job of telling us everything we needed to know and what we needed to think about. I like to think she is presented as efficient, direct and compassionate - in less than thirty seconds.

She was present for the performance. She brought her mom. Toni and I love Carrie.

THE FIRST QUESTION

I could tell the performance had gone well, because there was applause, and a lot of crying. And honestly, I was surprised. It is always difficult to reconnect with this play after a long break. Seven months, in this case. Afterwards someone remarked on how I can remember all those lines. I said it's easier than memorizing a play, because it's my story, I can make stuff up if I want to (more on that later.)

Anyway, I was surprised. The performance was in one of those big, corporate dining facilities, with state-of-the-art sound and video. Last year, both performances in London and even the one if Chicago were marred by hours of tech beforehand where Kelly and I were just trying to figure out some of the most basic stuff. Something was not compatible, and either the sound or PowerPoint would not work until maybe fifteen minutes before curtain.

For the first time since 2003 Nick was on the case. He has merged the sound into the PowerPoint (the way it always should have been, I guess) and our tech on Thursday lasted about five minutes. I was able to waltz into the space a scant thirty minutes befor the show on Friday.

However, as is usually the case in such facilities, it's lights up the whole time. Which means I can see everyone. And it's not a happy happy show. People look sad. Or maybe even bored, it happens. Or ... hostile. I've encountered that before. Feeling insecure already, I simply couldn't tell how the show was going over. There are funny parts, and usually that's my only gauge. If they laugh when they are supposed to, then I know they are with me.

Very few laughs. There was one table, down left, that seemed to have everyone under the age of thirty at it. They laughed. They were my anchor when I thought I was truly sucking, I looked at them.

Apparently this was all in my head, however (and there's a good reason for that, wait for it) maybe I had simply forgotten the difference between the medical practitioner audience and the bereaved parents audience. The bereaved parents - they laugh. Because they know where the jokes are. Heck, sometimes they know when the jokes are coming.

One day, however, I do need to get down to business and write that FAQ for after the performance. I like the Q&A that follows, but we could save some time if I headed off some of the questions beforehand. Because, as sure as an actor is going to be asked, "how do you memorize all those lines," the first question a nurse is going to ask is this:

"What are we supposed to say?"

One time, a few years ago, it was truly aggressive. I opened the floor to questions, there was an icy silence (which was a neat trick, as it was about ninety degrees in the room) and then someone said, "Well, you told us everything we've ever done wrong, what are we supposed to say?"

That's not what I got on Friday. What was asked was concerned and direct - but it was the same question. I truly believe I answer that question in the course of the play, though I am very interested in how readers of this blog would answer that question; "What are we supposed to say?"

WHAT I GOT WRONG - or - THE PLAY WITHOUT ANOTHER BABY

Here's the thing. I work very hard to get this story back up to speed after a long break. But it's very hard. I get surprised sometimes by things that I have forgotten, things that are second-nature. And sometimes I feel I have done it so many times I have locked up a little, and that I am missing out on an opportunity here, to let the play grow with repetition.

And I thought I was doing all right. And sometimes I miss something, like when I didn't mention that my brother lives in London in the first sentence of that scene - I just said it a moment later, where it made sense to include that information. That was odd, but no one could tell.

But then there's the second "Julie" scene, where she calls to apologize for the first phone call. It was all right. I bobbled a line, forgot where I was a little bit, which is odd, that scene is usually solid. But I thought I got it out right. Just felt strange.

Very strange. And as I hung up the phone it occured to me (no, wait, that song comes later) but as I hung up I thought, what is the point of that scene? She just called to apologize? That's it? That felt a little flat ... and I put the phone back in its cradle, and I think, SH*T! I didn't say she was pregnant!

So I spend most of the rest scene flying on automatic, trying to say my lines at the same time I am trying to figure out exactly how much I have destroyed this performance. It took about a minute to realize (this is while I am playing one of the more difficult scenes for me in the entire play) it will just come up at Christmas, it will be a surprise then, but no less significant, and that's all that can be done about it. Can't go back, must move forward.

"Two households, both alike in Verona, in fair ... I'll come in again."

TOOTING YOUR OWN HORN

This past weekend we were in Athens, and checked out a package of short subjects at the Athens Video + Film Festival. Some were good, some were not. The worst piece was The Girls of Elizabeth Street (the promo mats claim it was inspired by Truffant's "Les Mistons" but who gives a f*ck) which wasn't merely pedestrian and poorly made, but was prefaced by a rolling list of all the places it had won awards and all the numerous festivals it had been accepted to.

We just watched as the list went on and on, and I couldn't help but saying out loud, "Well. It better be good."

I don't know what bothered me more. The fact that it was set in 1976 and yet the kid had Star Wars figures, or the fact that there was narration AND numerous title cards, or the fact that the filmmaker had absolutely nothing original or interesting to say about being a pre-adolescent boy. None of these things would have bothered me nearly as much, however, if it hadn't been prefaced by a list of major awards.

Which is how I was feeling right before I went on, when Carrie graciously mentioned to the audience that I HATE THIS had been recongized by the Plain Dealer, the New York Times and the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists.

Well. It better be good.

And so I stepped out, feeling like I had set myself up for mediocrity. And I neglected to mention Julie was pregnant.

I have more to say about this, much more. But it's taken forty-five minutes to get this much out. Excuse me if I sound churlish. As performances of I HATE THIS go, it went very well, all around. Everyone was extremely kind, and I did give them (mostly) the same performance everyone gets. I believe this is more than I have ever said about what goes on in my brain when putting on one of these shows, and I am simply hoping it doesn't reflect too poorly on what I'm doing.

And, oh yeah - "What are we supposed to say?"

My vain struggle for hipness and relevance

Yes I should take a moment and record my reflections on last Friday's performance. They are myriad and dark.

First, however - you know, it has been a few years since a friend of mine suggested I listen to Modest Mouse. I got a good ten years on this person and I respect her taste in music it scares me to touch one of her mix CDs. She was into Death Cab for Cutie before the Postal Service. Woo.

So this new MM album comes out and what do I do, I sample it on iTunes (because that's what you do) and there's one track I respond to, Dashboard and when I listen to the entire thing all I can think it, this isn't just emulating XTC, this is XTC, from the staccato guitar riffs to the descending choruses of "OH! OH! OH! OH! OH!" The lyrics are even Partridge in their extreme.

Thought about getting the rest of the record as part of their "complete your album" promotion ... but I don't want to. The rest of it just sounds like Death Cab.

MR. JAMES HENKE in The Dark Room

Cleveland Public Theatre and the Cleveland Theatre Collective present The Dark Room

Join The Dark Room for a special evening featuring

From the Seriously Messed Up Stash of Mr. James Henke
by area writer David Hansen
Tuesday, May 1
Cleveland Public Theatre
6415 Detroit Ave., Cleveland, OH  44102

7:30pm - Writers sign-up for open session
8:00pm - Presentation of featured writer David Hansen

Suggested donation of $5 is welcomed at the door, but not required.

From the Seriously Messed Up Stash of Mr. James Henke by David Hansen
Directed by Kelly Elliott

Featuring Camden Stacey, Ariel Gilbert and George Roth* as Mr. James Henke  - Member, AEA

About the play:
Two children, each looking for answers about their families, are locked in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame overnight. There, in the dark halls of the museum, they uncover mysteries of rock and roll, urban legends, and find a mysterious man who may hold the key to what they are looking for. 
 
In addition to the featured writer, there will be readings of In Rep, a new screenplay by Larry Nehring and Fairy Tale Romance, a one-act play by Pat Stansbury
 
The Dark Room is a co-production of Cleveland Public Theatre (www.cptonline.org) and The Cleveland Theatre Collective (www.clevelandtheatre.com). The Dark Room affords emerging and veteran playwrights the space and resources to develop new works. It offers a venue to workshop plays, novels, poems, or any other written work in a supportive, yet critical environment.

The Dark Room continues on the first Tuesday of each month. 

darkroom@cptonline.org

POW !!!

Waiting for the other shoe to drop, I have otherwise been enjoying the fact that, pretty much since January, I have not suffered a single debilitating headache. There have been mild ones that I have either dealt with or made go away with ordinary, over-the-counter pain medication. But nothing serious.

Yesterday afternoon was entirely normal, until I started driving home and began feeling tired. I had a stressful phone call with my brother in London, and then proceeded to discuss arrangements with the folks in Louisville about the May 11th event.

Prior to these calls, I was feeling presser between my eyes. My elelids where feeeling heavy and sore. By the time I got off the phone with Rev. M. in KY, I was feeling sick to my stomach, and needed to lie down.

Brief, relevant side-comment: In THE TEMPEST, Andrew wanted to avoid the normal "gee, I'm awfully sleepy" acting that usually goes into those scenes when eithe Prospero or Ariel puts someone to sleep. It was like WHAM, people would say they were "wonderous heavy" and then just collapse. Not that anyone was watching me, but my little trick was, you guessed it, I would get a migraine. We'd hear little bells, and my fingers would go to the bridge of my nose, my vision would blur (not really, that was acting) my stomach would clench, and then BOOM, I'd slump on the ground.

It only added injury to insult that a moment later D.A. would use my head as a bongo, but I didn't tell him that.

My question, as always, is this: WHY? Barometric pressure? Familial concern? Or, what I am increasingly beginning to fret - is it this show?

I had to perform with a headache In November, 2004. The day after the perf at the conference in Chicago last year I was socked in bed all morning and part of the afternoon. Last night, totally wasted, for me and for Toni, who did her best to keep the children away from me. These are just three examples, but it makes me wonder.

It was hideous. It lasted all night. Even now I feel hung-over.

Performance Friday

Shaping the Future of Women & Children’s Health 2007
Sponsored by University Hospitals of Cleveland
Corporate College East, Warrensville Heights, OH
Friday, April 27, 2007 - 3:40 pm

Haven't performed live since October, since Chicago. Friday's perf and the one in Louisville in two weeks come at a good time, I can get reacquainted with the material before all of the necessary tearing my hair out in preparation for the UK tour.

This, of course, is the first time I have performed the show since I began having "the doubts." I used to revisit 2001 with a certain amount of satisfaction, like visiting a wounded old friend. I am uncertain what this will feel like. Just as well, I used to be troubled with other kinds of neuroses before an IHT perf, now I have a new one.

Word!

Recommendation to the Recording and Broadcast Industries: A Statement by Russell Simmons and Dr. Benjamin Chavis on behalf of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network:

... HSAN reaffirms, therefore, that there should not be any government regulation or public policy that should ever violate the First Amendment. With freedom of expression, however, comes responsibility. With that said, HSAN is concerned about the growing public outrage concerning the use of the words "xxxxx," "xx," and "xxxxxx." We recommend that the recording and broadcast industries voluntarily remove/bleep/delete the misogynistic words "xxxxx" and "xx" and the racially ofensive word "xxxxxx." (Read the words yourself here.)

Self-censorship. Always been popular in my family.

Miller Time

"Memory inevitably romanticizes, pressing reality to recede like pain."
- Arthur Miller, Timebends

I have been tossing two books back and forth for several weeks now. My resolve to read for no less than 30 minutes a day was working out pretty well, until the performances began getting to me (I stopped running a week ago Friday) but then illness and a new project kept Miller's autobiography in my hands pretty much exclusively and at all times for the entire weekend.

I still don't know what I have or had, but I feel it finally draining out of me, leaving a hideous sore throat. Regardless, my big revelation is that I no longer hold Arthur Miller in contempt. I am sure this would be a major relief to him were he still alive. In any event, the irritation I developed during a seminar in college, one devoted to Miller, where I was once so looking forward to reading so many of his works, only to discover each one an increasingly pale copy of the one before it ... and all of his commentary ... endless commentary ...

I think that's what bothered me the most, and left me feeling I had a right to judge him not on his plays but on his edirotials and essays, defending his work, explaining his work, as though the work did not explain itself, or that we couldn't get it, and if we didn't like it, we were wrong.

Well. That was part of my problem right there, too much commentary. I should have skipped the commentary and paid more attention to the work.

In any case, I am readiing his autobiography, which I got for Christmas from Daniel. And why did Daniel give me a copy of Timebends for Christmas? Because I asked for it (it was a Secret Santa thing.) So why would I ask for a biography I wouldn't possibly want?

Uhm. I don't know. The line on the form said, "The book I would most like to read but don't own is ..?" Maybe I thought it said "least" but that doesn't make any sense. Anyway, I think I was trying to break something inside of myself, and just wrote it down. Two days before Christmas, and I had a copy.

Recently GLTF announced they would, for the first time, produce The Crucible. The work I have always felt stands out as Miller's true classic. The exception. I still doubt Salesman will be performed in another hundred years, but Crucible? They will be performing that play on Mars.

And so I had reason to research. So I have read. And I have kept reading. This guy's life is fascinating.

Another work Daniel opened up to me was To Kill a Mockingbird. "You don't really know a person till you put on their shoes and walk around in their skin for a while."

Once the season was announced, I was reminded again how much my father claims he hates Arthur Miller. I will get around to asking him why (I think I can guess) but before that day, I think I needed to see if my own distrust of him was misplaced.

Miller, not my dad.

Let the backlash begin!

"This American Life" Completes Documentation Of Liberal, Upper-Middle-Class Existence
- The Onion, 4/20/2007

"We've done it," said senior producer Julie Snyder, "There is not a single existential crisis or self-congratulatory epiphany that has been or could be experienced by a left-leaning agnostic that we have not exhaustively documented and grouped by theme."

Added Snyder, "We here at public radio couldn't be more pleased with ourselves."

Bam! Could've ended the article right there. Of course, this comes from The Onion which Tony Kushner referred to as "used to be funny," in one of his more understated remarks.

It is true, however, that though I have still been enjoying the program - finding it actually politically relevant on many occasions, entirely since 9/11 by no small coincidence - the emergence of the t.v. show, which I can't watch because I don't have Showtime, and yet I truly believe I wouldn't watch anyway, because, having seen the clips, I have been freshly reminded of that feeling I had in the pit of my stomach the very first time I heard Ira's voice in a promo way back in the mid-90s, promising me that I would, oh yes, me, actually sit in my car, to wait for one of their stories to end.

True, perhaps. And so smug.

Jealous, churlish, what have you, Nancy Franklin puts it so much better in her review of the t.v. show in the New Yorker:

"One is so reluctant to express any degree of dislike for “This American Life,” th popular public-radio storytelling progra created by Ira Glass twelve years ago, an featuring such stars as David Sedaris, Sara Vowell, and John Hodgman, that one’ inclination is to avoid the use of the first-person pronoun for as long as possible in order not to be identified with any reservations concerning the show. On wants deniability; in fact, one wants to hide."

In fact, one goes on.

"Good" grief

What a successful week for death.

Tuesday night, we were in the audience for a Writers Center Stage discssion with playwright Tony Kushner and director George C. Wolfe. Moderator (if he can be called that, as he did a painfully poor job of moderating the Q&A) Earl Pike got the evening off on a clumsy note by asking the creators of (among other things) Angels In America to comment on the shooting deaths of 33 people at Virgina Tech the day before.

Well, maybe not so clumsy. The man who wrote Angels is not a man who shies away from the subject of death, nor grief, and his response was, his verbal tics nothwithstanding, refreshingly direct. Yes, he said the Second Amendment should be repealed, a highly controversial suggestion which I have heard more than once in the past five days, but went to comment on the reaction in the media, the common refrains of "closure" and "getting past this" as if anyone who was there, whose family members were killed or wounded, ever will. They won't, but we live in a culture that is so hideously bad at coping with loss, we try and hopscotch over it, to jump as swiftly as possible to neat summations about loss without ever dealing with the loss itself.

Discussing his work as a director, Wolfe said that anything you try and skip during the process, you are just going to have to come back to eventually, so you might as well deal with it right away. Later he said the same thing about coping with grief. Deal with it now, because you are going to have to deal with it eventually.

Meanwhile, it's business as usual in Iraq. 33 dead? That's a good day in Baghdad.

"It's impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they're gone -- and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation."

That's the President, who attended a memorial in Blacksburg, Virginia the same day we saw Kushner and Wolfe speak. Bush doesn't attend soldiers' funerals. And yet, he could make that same speech every single day for the war he started.

And while we are on the subject of the President (this President, as politicans are increasingly referring to him) this President's Supreme Court have succeeded in putting a wedge into Roe v. Wade, setting the stage for a horror-host of restrictions on access to abortion.

For years Democrats have employed the euphemism a women's right to choose when what they really mean is a woman's right to choose an abortion. Only people don't like to use that word, which sucks for them because that's what we are talking about. And there shouldn't be any shame in it. Justice Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that women need to be protected from having to choose what is admittedly a grisly surgical procedure. Well, isn't that manly of him. Protection for a woman whose life is at risk and may, in a particular situation, require this procedure was not strong enough of an argument for these men who, you have to admit, I mean we knew this, would never and will never protect the right to abortion no matter what the facts are.

(Big sigh. I have been nursing a hideous cold for the last three days, and keeping up two performances a day. Forgive me, it's been a tough week.)

On a lighter note, the NY Times ran this classy memorial for Kitty Carlisle Hart who died Tuesday at the age of 96.



I read that they expected her to lip-synch someone else singing Alone for this scene from A Night at the Opera and her agent stonewalled the producers for three days until she got the chance to sing it herself. Ciao, Rosa.

For the love of Trent

"i have a hard time laughing at nine inch nails. trent reznor is not one to be laughed at. keep in mind."
- a fanboy objecting to this NIN vs. Britney mashup

I haven't bought a Nine Inch Nails album since The Downward Spiral. True, I "purchased" a single or two from his last album, but that was as far as it went. And why is this? His first three albums - loved them. In fact, I feel TDS was seared into my psyche, there are parts of that record I still can't listen to.

Timing is everything. I was 26 (26 years - on my way to Hell*) and the album provided the soundtrack to the disintegration of my first marriage, my first theater company, and was the backdrop to a host of unsavory social behavior.

So ... how do you follow that up? If you've been truly, deeply feeling something so wretched and low, and make a connection to some piece of music that so entirelt expresses what you are feeling at that time ... what happens when you no longer feel those things? What if you become, say, happy?

I'm not saying I can't listen to that album, or Pretty Hate Machine. What I'm saying is that I an't listen to anything he's recorded since. Because Trent was so successful at expressing those dark and ugly things, what am I supposed to do with SHINY, BRAND NEW ANGST?

Maybe I'm missing out on something. They said The Fragile was the best album of 1999. Some liked With Teeth, but I just find it difficult to take Trent seriously anymore (fanboy notwithstanding.) He's this muscle-bound, joyless, metal-thug, like Rollins only devoid of any humor.

So I was not a little amused by Kelefa Sanneh's positive but ultimately condescending review of NIN's latest album, Year Zero in the NY Times. If I felt buying a NIN album would be like trying to connect to some part of my life that doesn't exist anymore, apparently recording it was much the same.

* Actually, a lyric from the Broken EP.

31 Runs for 31 Years

Last fall I ran the New York Marathon. Yay for me. Then, around Thanksgiving, I entirely ceased running. Let's eat, drink and sleep for a change. By January I was feeling puffy and sluggish and really, really depressed. But the weather was miserable, worse than miserable, and so was I. So by early February I was inspired to finally get back out there, sub-freezing temps be damned.

I had gotten used to listening to PODRUNNER, which I still subscribe to ... but I knew I would need shorter workouts if I was going to maintain any kind of regularity in my runs. No more hour-plus runs, that's too much time, and besides, I needed to get back into shape.

So instead I crafted thirty to forty-five minute playlists - and each one would be from a different year. I didn't put them together in any particular order, but I found I could go back as far as 1977 - before that I don't have enough music in my library with enough punch. Actually, they didn't make music with punch before then.

As it also turns out, 1977 was the year I came into awareness of the larger world. Star Wars, Three Mile Island, President Carter, Saturday Night Live - and Top 40 radio, I started consuming culture that year. I cannot claim to have actually listened to everything on my 31 years worth of playlists when they were released, but if I made playlists of what I was listening to at that time, well, I would probably be doing a lot of strolling, not running.

So, for those of you who don't already following my other blog, Daddy Runs Fast, here's the run-down:

1977 Daddy likes men

1978 Ja tvoi sluga. Ja tvoi rabotnik.

1979 Flying like a cement kite

1980 Here we go again

1981 The engine's thumpin' like a disco

1982 Fingerpaint the sun on you

1983 Did you know you had this power?

1984 It's a lot like life

1985 No one move a muscle as the dead come home

1986 The sun. More beautiful.

1987 My whole life flashed before I crashed

1988 It's a physical thing but not hard to do

1989 O brave new world

1990 Just a minute let me slip something on

1991 The sun struggles up another beautiful day

1992 Just words and so much skin

1993 We are such stuff ...

1994 The only thing that works for me

1995 Stop f*cking with me

1996 And I'll need a kiss for my head that's aching

1997 My blood wants to say hello to you

1998 Perfect solution to the stress and the strain

1999 Full fathom five

2000 I drank too much last night, got bills to pay

2001 I can go for miles if you know what I mean

2002 It's like St. John said

2003 How much do you commit yourself

2004 I'm fit (but I know it)

2005 You're lucky, lucky, you're so lucky!

2006 Beware of the dork

2007 Tomorrow there's no school so let's go drink some more Red Bull

Nestlé to Buy Gerber for $5.5 Billion

Great. Now I can't have Quik.

No damn cat, and no damn cradle.

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."

- Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
1922 - 2007

Open letter to NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday

I find it interesting that you would choose Easter Sunday to discuss our current fascination with torture and extreme violence in the movies - and yet neglect to mention The Passion of the Christ, unquestionably the most popular snuff film of all time.

"What's past is prologue."
- The Tempest, II.i

"It's something you learn after your first theme party - it's all been done before."
- Angels in America

Eggshelland!

Silly me, I have been so preoccupied with the opening of TEMPEST that I entirely forgot that it's thatt ime of year again. Time for EGGSHELLAND!

Fifty Years! That's incredible, I want to have done anything for fifty years, I don't care if it is making mosaics of cartoon characters out of blown eggshells sprayed with car enamel, that's an achievement, dammit.

You haven't heard of Eggshelland? Of course you have, you read my blog. But if you're new, here's an old post of mine about it or you can just visit their website* - and then get your butt to Lyndhurst before Easter Monday, when they pack all the eggs up in crates and put them away for another year.

* Turn the volume way up.

OH MY GOD !!!
THEY'RE OTTERS ...

... AND THEY'RE HOLDING HANDS !!!!!!

(Thanks, Christine.)

Why We Banned the Play About Iraq
NY Times Letter to the Editor from the Wilton, CT Superintendent of Schools

"We supported the student play about Iraq, but we have concerns about its drafts. Book, film and Web site source materials are cut and pasted together in a way that does not give them attribution or cite the viewpoint of the authors. Students directly act soldiers’ parts rather than read the sources, an approach that sensationalizes the material." (more)

Why do I keep posting about this story? Because it's about theater. Because I once directed a play about a war that sounds like it was created more or less the way this one is. Because their Superintendent of Schools just put forth one lame-ass excuse for stifling any student's creativity or personal expression.

Overheard in Cleveland

Parking attendant on a cellphone:
" ... see, I'm just beginning to understand how smart-mouthed Jesus was ..."

It's the Boomers' Century, we just live in it.

Apart From Wanting It All, What Makes Boomers So Special?
by Virginia Heffernan, NY Times, 3/28/2007

"To say that you were born in 1946 to a world of hope, only to have innocence dashed in November 1963, and go on to discover sex and free thought in the subsequent years, is just to say that you were born, turned 17 and grew up ..." (more)

(I'm in tech for THE TEMPEST ... I may have my own thoughts to share in a week.)

The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance.
The Tempest V.i

Play About Iraq War Divides a Connecticut School
By Alison Leigh Cowan, 3/24/2007

"'(Principal Timothy H. Canty) told us the student body is unprepared to hear about the war from students, and we aren’t prepared to answer questions from the audience and it wasn’t our place to tell them what soldiers were thinking,' said Sarah Anderson, a 17-year-old senior who planned to play the role of a military policewoman ..." (more)

Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and Infant Loss Blog Directory

Not alone.

Six short years ago (no, not short) we began creating a ritual. And on Calvin's first birthday it was pretty set: decorating the brick outside CPT, visitng his grave at Riverside Cemetery and then a trip to the zoo to see the otters. The home to create "the feast" which consists of spaghetti and meatballs (my favorite) whole artichokes with butter (her favorite) and some kind of dessert.

We did this alone that first year, just us and an otter named Bat. The next year, the day Bush started his war, we had a small child with us, who slept through most of it.

Now we have two, who shape the day's events as much as working around our schedules does.

The more you stay the same, the more they seem to change. Girl, put your records on.


Reading the Brick




We have three.


Riverside Cementery

It was a cold day this year. There is a new stone, on the other side of the tree, for children from UH who do not have their own plot. This troubled me a little, because I assume Calvins plot will now not get as much attention from the groundskeepers. He and his compatriots were cremated, and laid in a communal plot, which I guess is now full.

As if to confirm this potential for neglect, a backhoe which had worked on a nearby grave had pressed the stone into the muddy earth. It was partially obstructed, tokens of affection had been scattered. I wasn't prepared to do a proper cleaning, but managed as best I could with water from a sippy cup and the 900 number pages from a copy of Scene. We collected some of the toys and cars that had been tossed aside and put them back where they belonged.


Six sunflowers


Otter family


Tertia & Orson

My folks joined us at the zoo. I had an all-day rehearsal for TEMPEST, and the plan was to have the feast after 8.30 when I got home. By then the kids were quite squirrelly, and so we had dessert with them and put them to bed. Toni and I enjoyed Calvin's birthday dinner on our own for the first time in years.

By then it was very late. To do things right, we'd need to go through his things, listen to his song, but life just got in the way this year. Better to make time when we can really take our time with them.


Blowing out his candles.

Any practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner.

Life intrudes.

Last year we celebrated Calvin's fifth just before leaving for London. In fact, our calendar was arranged around it, that's when my hiatus began and we had a flight on Tuesday as opposed to a nicely rounded Sunday or Monday. The year before we had a wedding to attend in NYC, a wedding on the 20th, and so most of our rituals were performed on the 19th - going to the zoo, preparing and enjoying the feast. On the morning of the 20th we decorated the brick and went to his grave before heading to the airport.

This year it's my schedule that has things out of order. Because I am performing in one-half of a rep, the second half, the last week has been spent in a holding pattern (i.e. no rehearsal) while the other show got on its feet. Now that HAY FEVER has opened, TEMPEST rehearsals resume in earnest - starting tomorrow.

This afternoon I will prepare meatballs and whatever else I can do. Tomorrow we will perform our remembrances in the morning before my noontime call, and have a late-night feast whenever I get back, probably after 8.30. We will shake the kids a little bit to keep them awake.

Every year a ritual ... that changes.

"... and on Tuesday it is brother Calvin's birthday ..."

"Yay!" said Zelda.

Stuck

There are a number of swirling emotions in our home right now, which is normal for the second week of March. "When is it going to stop being wintertime?" Z. asks, again. She had been asking this once a day for a couple of weeks, the past few days representing a freakish respite from snow and whithering cold.

"It will stop being winter next Tuesday," I tell her, "that's the first day of spring." But I also warn her, "it will still be cold."

Seasons hold meaning to all living things, the calendar only belongs to us. And so it is with no amount of real significance to anyone except us (the personal us this time, not the all-inclusive us) that March 20 falls on a Tuesday, for the first time since 2001.

Monday was the routine check-up, Tuesday was his birthday.

Two days ago I spent the afternoon with Number 3. The Boy. The One Who Lived, and continues to do so despite own mutual attempts to smash his head to pieces (not to mention a particularly grisly dream I had the other night which I won't go into here.)

We were in the backyard, he wanted to play with the rakes, so we were scraping up all the leaves from the Magnolia which I missed last fall. We also took up a lot of dead grass.

I have lived in the same house since 1993. I only met the backyard in 2001. We cancelled the lawn service, primarily as a cost-cutting measure, but it put me back there, with a new, manual lawn-mower. Toni worked in the garden, we got a bench, I pulled weeds, it was part of the plan, whatever it took to take control of something, anything.

And though I had this hot little toddler in my hands, helping him put the ball in the basket (over and over and over again) the rich smell of rotten grass, the dust from the garage, the sun on my head, the breeze, it was all 2001, all over again.

Songs for an Anxious Pregnancy

Okay, I need your help - and by "your" I am hoping for some lurkers, and not just my brother. For years (really? years?) I have been meddling with a fertility playlist in my head. A list of songs relating to pregnancy, childbirth, miscarriage, abortion, and so on.

Not about parenting. And not "I love my baby" songs.

And after jotting a few of these down, this is all I got:

Hit - The Sugarcubes
Eat For Two - 10,000 Maniacs
Happy Families - XTC
Apron Strings - Everything but the Girl
Sally's Pigeons - Cyndi Lauper
Birth-Day (Love Made Real) - Suzanne Vega
This Woman's Work - Kate Bush

Okay, that's without doing a lot of head-scratching. Would anyone care to contribute? I will not judge nor mock your taste in music, at least not here.

A Place to Turn When a Newborn Is Fated to Die
by Neela Banerjee, The New York Times 3/13/2007

"Most couples choose to have an abortion when they learn that the fetus has a fatal condition. But experts say about 20 to 40 percent of families given such diagnoses opt to carry the pregnancy to term, and an increasing number of them, like the Kilibardas, have turned to programs called perinatal hospice for help with the practical and spiritual questions that arise ..." (more)

Soon, we are six.

Just another fabulous night at home. The Spring Rep opens Saturday. I am not in the first show of the Spring Rep, HAY FEVER, which means the next week is going to be a little easy. No rehearsal until at least Thursday. Evenings at home. Z. asked last week," When are you going to stop doing shows?" I almost answered, "When I'm dead, honey." But that's a little dark, even for us.

But there were martinis for mom and dad, and a lot of play with the children. I had the ROCK MUSIC mix playing on iTunes, which includes light rock, and when Andrew Gold's Lonely Boy came on, there were two slightly tipsy thirtysomethings (if I may use that term) dancing with their progeny, and with not a little joyful irony in their steps.

Later we were taking in a video of Ezra Jack Keats' The Snowy Day on video with the two little tadgers before putting them to bed. "How old is Peter, do you think?" I asked.

"Six," Toni said.

"Yes," I agreed. "Calvin is almost six."

"Why is Calvin almost six?" Z. asked. Everything is why right now.

"He was born almost six years ago," I said.

Yes. Sitting in what is now "the tee vee room." It's where the t.v. is, overlooking the backyard. It was Calvin's room. With the ceiling painted a metallic blue. Where we came to cry, as a ritual, day after day, one million years ago.

I was in my early-early thirties then. I am in my late thirties now. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed with everything that has happened between then and now, it feels as though nothing has happened between then and now.

UK Itinerary

This June we return to the British Isles for the legendary SANDS IHT-UK Tour. Maybe we should make T-shirts.

This is the (partially) itinerary, there may be at least one more scheduled:

Carlisle - Sat 9th
London - Tues 12th
Lincoln - Thurs 14th
Birmingham - Sat 16th
Belfast - Mon 18th
Exeter - Weds 20th

I have only ever been to one of these cities. Carlisle is almost, but not quite Scotland. Lincoln is, I believe, to the east of the Midlands, Birmingham is West Midlands. Exeter is south of Wales, and Belfast is, well, Belfast.

If you are clocking this from over there, forgive my ignorance, I just got this and have only begun my research.

Anne Francis Stars In "Forbidden Planet"

This spring I am part of the repertory company for Great Lakes Theater Festival's production of THE TEMPEST, directed by Andrew May. In preparation for the performance I went to Netflix and queued up a copy of Forbidden Planet.

I think in this version, my character is the alcoholic cook, but I'm not sure.

A sci-fi classic from 1956, starring a 30 year-old Leslie Nielsen as the captain, it's exactly the kind of movie MST3K used to send up, only with a plot, interesting characters and fabulous (even by today's standards) special effects.

Yeah, it's a little like TEMPEST, if you count a creepy philologist for the sorcerer Prospero and his slutty late-twenties daughter for the 14 year-old Miranda. Robby, the Robot (check the correct punctuation!) is either Ariel or Caliban, I can't tell.

What is most thrilling is that after a long day of supervising and rehearsing, and joining my family for library time, and then Harriett's 40th birthday party, everyone came home and promptly fell asleep, leaving me to make a Manhattan, pop some popcorn, and watch this chestnut with all the lights out, on my lonesome.

Be the people we want our children to become.

I spend far too much time "surfing" the Internet (i.e. watching porn) and not enough time either reading or writing. I should be doing both, and so - just today - I pledged to read a half-hour every night. Some people already do this. Most don't. But, funny, there's a lot of books here, and for some reason I havn't read as many as I have desired to.

Right now I am reading Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire by Rafe Esquith. It's an inspirational tome Toni picked out because she knows I am going to be leading a theater camp this summer, and thought I might need some ... inspiration.

Rafe Esquith, for those who do not know, is the famous fifth grade teacher from Los Angeles who teaches ESL students (presumably at-risk) to - among other things - perform an entire Shakespearean play by the end of the school year. He teaches a lot of other things, too, but that's the bit that gets him so much attention.

While she was at it, Toni got me the documentary about his work, The Hobart Shakespeareans, from the loal library. I like the book better. While it is exciting to see these children actually performing scenes from Hamlet, the filmmakes chose to forgo an narrator, and so left Rafe to explain everything he does to the camera. I can see why his fellow teachers at Hobart find him insufferable, no teacher should be opened up to such scrutiny. He comes off as very pleased with himself, which I don't believe is accurate nor fair. But there it is.

Also ... were the children really that exciting that Micahel York visited their class? I mean ... were they really? Also, I wanted to be introduced to Ian McKellen's lover, but as movie this produced in part by PBS, they just let him sit there anonymously and smile. Damn you, Buster Baxter, you coward, you.

The book (not his first) is much more enjoyable as not a memoir, but as a how-to manual for teaching kids - any kids. Or for that matter, raising them. I'm enjoying it a great deal.

Secret Club

Hey, weird, I'm in someone else's book.

You'll have to forgive me, I really have tried to keep a comprehensive database on everyone I've spoken with about this show, but I don't remember speaking to Ms. Seftel for her book, Grief Unseen: Healing Pregnancy Loss Through the Arts. Not that she needed to speak with me, what she has gleaned from the production, she could have learned anywhere online, or through the radio drama. Still, an email would have been appreciated.

This link will take you directly to a preview page (p. 89). Notice the reference to Infertility:The Musical right below it. Both shows were at the 2004 NY Fringe.

I can use the Internet, too, however. And it wasn't long before I realized I have heard of Laura Seftel before, once, on NPR. Coping with her own miscarriage in the early 90s, she has created The Secret Club Project, "an international project featuring more than 40 artists exploring miscarriage and other pregnancy-related losses, including infertility, ectopic pregnancy, molar pregnancy, and stillbirth."

I think I'm going to get a copy of the book. I encourage you to check out their website. It's amazing the things you can discover on a boring Friday evening when you are Googling your own name.


(Pesky copyright violations ...)

"Emotional practice"

Sudden Death
What Bridge to Terabithia still teaches us.
By Emily Bazelon
SLATE Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007, at 6:38 PM ET

Spoiler alert: This piece gives away the ending of Bridge to Terabithia.

Thanks, Henrik.

Smaller world

"I've been a huge Chicago Public Radio junkie lately. They're playing a lot of radio plays and new music shows. Today I woke up for my ritualistic noon dose of This American Life. Afterwards, they played a radio play called "I Hate This (a play without the baby)," a one-man show by David Hansen which chronicles his and his wife's experience of having a stillborn child ... "(more)

Sibling Rivalry

Zelda has a subscription to NWF's Your Big Backyard magazine. Today the March issue arrived, the featured animal was (you guessed?) an otter. Big ol' otter photo on the front. "You OTTER love this issue!" it says.

I packed Orson in the car to pick Z. up from school, and brought the magazine to share with her. "Want see otter!" Orson shouts, and so I hand him the magazine ... and he promptly tears the cover neatly in half.

Transcending Pain, a Friendship Fed on Imagination
- NY Times review of "Bridge to Terabthia" 02/16/07
"Consistently smart and delicate as a spider web, “Bridge to Terabithia” is the kind of children’s movie rarely seen nowadays. And at a time when many public schools are being forced to cut music and art from the curriculum, the story’s insistence on the healing power of a nurtured imagination is both welcome and essential ... (more)

Okay, so maybe I spoke too soon. Not that the kids are old enough to see this ... but maybe I am. Whew.

It's hard to share why this book was so important to me when I first read it in 5th grade without giving away the ending. What I will say (SPOILER WARNING) is that it was my first truly emotional connection with death. Which makes me feel awful, because my grandmother had died a year or two earlier, and I had little or no connection to that.

Echoes of '78

It's going to have to continue much longer for there to be any comparison, but I have to tell you getting home last night from TEMPEST rehearsals was just stupid. For me it was a test of my East Side geography, and I passed the test. Every time I encoutnered some kind of log-jam, I would take a detour, each one more successful than the last.

Carnegie was backed up to East 55th, so I ducked onto Euclid. I could see that my normal routes, up MLK to Cedar Hill, or up Little Italy, were entirely backed up, and would remain so. I wasn't going home until a little after seven (they called rehearsal early because of the stuff) and yet I imagined poor homegoers, locked in on Mayfield at the top of the hill, sitting there for hours.

I kept heading down Euclid into East Cleveland (it all opened up once I got past Case) and took Forest Hills. Meanwhile, my wife had gotten rear-ended after pulling off the road to scrape accumulating ice off the windshield. The force knocked her down, and she took the wiper with her. Luckily she was unharmed - and so were the kids, inside the car. I got all this news from my cellphone, inside my car, trying to get home.

Everyone is trying to take it easy today. Schools are closed, my office is closed, I was told not to attend afternoon rehearsal, but I will be going out in it tonight. Hope the roads are clear.

whimper.

Uhm ... was it just me, or didn't some kind of big report come out last week announcing that the world was going to end in fifty years?

I mean, the world won't end, but our place in it. Those cities not underwater will be in the same state as New Orleans - rich people with guns rebuilding and everyone else s.o.l.? I mean, wasn't that this gist of the announcement?

And since then, I have to admit, I have done nothing. Yes, yes, I have been replacing every burned out bulb with a nifty new flourescent, but I haven't started taking the bus yet. Neither, from what I can see, has anyone else.

Is someone going to take care of this for us?

"Just another victim ..."

Shame on me. Thoughtless. I try not to post without editing but that was dumb. Obviously it has been sticking with me for months.

We're all victims of something, and I guess it's what you do with your personal hell that defines you. For some actions are very personal, they work on the family-level, the spiritual level. I have a tendency to broadcast and I can't help that. I have been doing it since before I could remember, since I could type or learned to use the cassette recorder.

I recently re-read I, Trissyby Norma Fox Mazer (a startling, eye-opening book from my fifth grade year, just behind Bridge to Terabithiawhich it seems Disney is geared to entirely f*ck up) which exposed me not only to the horrors of divorce, about which I was ignorant. Of course, my two best friends' parents had split a few years earlier, but it took a book to know what they were going through.

It also had the effect of making me feel I had the right to type anything I felt like, any way I felt like, the right to say whatever I felt about anyone, even people I care about. I should have used Harriet the Spyas my bible, I may have learned a tip or two about discretion.

All these books are about intelligent, independent girls. Hmn.

Lately I have fallen in to a sizeable malaise. Blame the weather, everyone's health (but mine) the fact that I am "between projects," what have you. It has gotten me running again, at any rate. Rehearsals for THE TEMPEST begin on Tuesday, we'll see where that takes me.

A great deal of effluvia has been seeping through my brain over actions of the past seven years. A seven-year stink? How odd. But seriously, a rush of images and songs have been coming at me from Year 2000 to the present. And part of that (though not all) tie in to the boy, and where his existence has taken me, has taken us.

I could not sit still and just feel these things, I had to write about them, and having written about them, I had to share them, and having shared them, I needed to broadcast them as far as possible. This used to mean the ends of the living room. Now they go a bit farther.

I have three gigs coming up in the next few months. This spring will take us to a performance here in town, and a week or so later we should be traveling to Louisville, KY. And then ten days in Britain - the schuled is embryonic, but this time in June I may be performing I HATE THIS in London, Cornwall, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Never been to most of those places.

But again, this reflection on the past seven years. It all made me sad. Made me feel old. I have always said I enjoy perfomring this play because it keeps me close to Calvin.

I am beginning to worry that it is keeping me trapped in 2001.

As the present conflicts so harshly with that past, I have begun to rethink the show, and whether or not I should continue presenting it. The mission is still important, and so, frankly, is the money. But I've never really thought of what it has done to me, and whether or not I need to take a break, and permanently.

I had thought all of these things through last week, when I got this email:

Hello David,
(Our mutual friend) mentioned your play to me in our playwrights' group and I listened to the (radio) version. I think it would be great for med students at Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxx University or the general support group. I am in the Dept of Bioethics and Humanities at XXU. What would it take to bring you here?
Xxxx Xxxxxx MD

And so I told him what it would take. Because I can't let go.

"The I Hate This Show"

So for a few months now Dave at WCPN and I have been going back and forth about having I HATE THIS (the radio drama, of course) aired on WBEZ In Chicago, home to such noteworthy NPR programs like This American Life and Wait, Wait! Don't Tell Me ... WCPN had submitted it to the Third Coast International Audio Festival at WBEZ, for which it did not win, but it attracted the attention of the folks at Re: sound a program which, if I am to understand it correctly, rebroadcasts programs from other NPR stations.

We were negotiating the fine points of the contract, and looking forward to finding out the broadcast date - which I was going to post here and send via email to my friends in Chicago so they could hear it.

It aired last Saturday. So, as Dave put it, oops.

You can listen to the online version of the Re: sound broadcast here.

I wonder if Ira despised it.

Howard Katz

Thursday, June 14, 2001

You won't believe this one - we saw the world premiere of a new play at the National Theatre by this hot, British playwright. It's about this complete, showbiz ***hole who has this mid-life crisis and loses everything he owns or cares about in a desperate attempt to find some kind of meaning in life. It was part King Lear, part story of Job, and the climax, the very end of the play, this broken, destitute, shell of a man, he finally grasps his reason for living as he recounts, in glorious, passionate detail (I sh*t you not) every beautiful, exciting moment of the day that his first son was born.

We had a fun train ride home that night, let me tell you. Thank you, Patrick Marber.

Well, it only took six years, but the Roundabout Theatre Company is finally bringing Howard Katz to Off-B'way. Starring Alfred Molina, this is the American premiere of the show that ruined an otherwise nice day for Toni and I.

Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.

We checked out Children of Men the other night. I recommend it to anyone, though it is terribly violent and will bring about feelings of grief and helplessness in those already bereaved, or perhaps people in general. Hard to say. A film whose premise is the inability of the entire human race to conceive any more children would be disturbing to someone who'd never thought of it before, let alone those who think about it every day.

Having said that, it's excellent.

Even though I was not sobbing uncontrollably at the end, not the way my date was, images from the film have been haunting me for two days, and I just had to break my silence to mention it. One particular comment I wanted to share; the story of a child dying in his youth is being told, lovingly told by none other than Michael Caine (I thought he was channeling John Lennon - I just read that was actually his goal) and this other character, a (former) midwife says, "Everything happens for a reason."

I found it touching that that turn of phrase was included - I find it hard to believe that it was included by accident - and found it poignant that it was the midwife who said it.

Because we despise that sentence, don't we?