Thank You HHH

A totally Minnesotan anomaly: the DFL. If you grew up in Minnesota (like me) you might think that that smooth acronym is synonymous with the Democratic party of the rest of the country. Nope. The only way Democrats could get anything done in Minnesota in 1944 was to merge with the Farmer-Labor party. Hubert H. Humphrey helped make it happen. So the Farmers (historically Communists), the Laborers (historically Socialists), and the Democrats (the self-proclaimed "oldest political party in the world") join forces to give the Grand Old Party a run for its money. Man, I love Minnesota.

Acceptance

Yeah, I liked Obama's acceptance speech. I liked it, but I didn't love it. I didn't feel so much "involved".

And then it was pointed out to me tonight that the speech he gave at the DNC wasn't for me. He already knows how I'm gonna vote. He wasn't talking to me. I am not part of his target demographic. 

Ouch? Yeah! As much as I hate to admit it, it bruises the ego. And my pigeonholing can really be boiled down to two major factors: my profession & my age.  Damn it: I'm predictable. 

Okay, okay. Get over it. I'm not special. I'm not a wounded vet. I'm not a displaced autoworker from Michigan. I'm just another average American, right?

But no. There is NO AVERAGE AMERICAN. This thing bugs me. I'm still discovering why it bugs me, but it does. It's not new, but it's new to my consciousness. Every single one of the candidates in this primary/election season has peppered their oratory with biographical snippets of "average Americans".  "The autoworker in Detroit", "The single mother in Chicago", "The abandoned veteran"... It's the statistical bullshit that wears at me.  Even if a candidate were to reference five hundred sound-byte-anecdotal-neatly-packaged biographies of "average" Americans over the course of their campaign it would be no where near a big enough sample set for a country of hundreds of millions of people. Even though it's perfectly acceptable semantic logic to use a series of micro examples to support a macro thesis, this stuff is statistically flawed. The macro outweighs the micro so heavily that the experiential support of these true stories becomes irrelevant.  

Yes, it's nice to hear about "real" people. But it's a maneuver. Can you imagine if you had a week to tour the United States and your only job was to talk to "regular folks" and get their opinions about STUFF? I think you'd likely be able to assemble a dozen testimonials to support just about any cause.  

Whether you like the candidate or not, it's a maneuver. 

Are these speeches meant for me?

& I Quote

"What -- what is that American promise? It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect. It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, to look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road. Ours -- ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology. Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work. That's the promise of America, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation, the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper ... Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility, that's the essence of America's promise."

-Barack Obama, DNC, 8.28.08

Please Cross Your Fingers

at 9:30 AM, Thursday, September 18th.
Metropolitan Regional Arts Council 2008 - 2009 Arts Activities Support Panel Review.

We could use your good vibes.

Indiana Jones

Who loves the Indiana Jones franchise?  Me.  Even The Temple of Doom.  Even (gulp) Kate Capshaw.  Even (gulp, wipe sweat from upper lip) when they brought in the aliens with crystal skeletons. 

But it doesn't take a part-time professor to realize that the Indy movies are, structurally, a perfect exercise in the most simplistic dichotomy.   Heroes vs. villains, battling over who controls the uncontrollable: an indifferent, omniscient, vaguely spiritual source of power.  Easy-to-hate villains who want to be gods.  Heroes who can't let that happen.    

Yes, I like Indy,

(transition.  stay with me here)

but I love Animal Farm for way it rejects this way of story telling.  There's so much confusion among the characters in Animal Farm.  None of them have clear paths - most of them are just trying to make it through another day.  Snowball (as Trotsky) represents the well-intended.  Only Napoleon and Squealer are true villains.  And bumbling, inexperienced villains at that.  None of the other characters can really be classified as a hero.  Certainly not Boxer - too dense, too misdirected.  He becomes the anti-hero.  Is it cynical to think that this is more like real life? 

One or two bad eggs.

No heroes.

A multitude of onlookers, too caught up in their own survival to assert change.

A handful of privileged pigs, content to wear their blinders.

Preliminary Design by Keegan

A Nightmare

It's dark.  Moonlight slips in through the slatted walls.

High high above in the rafters of a cavernous barn the muted stirring of perched hens.

(If poultry could whisper.)

A few downy underfeathers float down in a silent entourage of dust, float down in and out and in and out of the moon.

Pig snouts in shadows, too-toothy grins brimming with spittle.

The near-silent hum of something falling.

An egg cracks on the hay / wood floor, a sharp treble followed by flowing ooze.  

(Gravity's still working.)

A filthy pair of pie-balds scurry in to lick the freshly dirtied yolk & white.  

This is the Hens' Protest.  

(More than eggs will fall.)

Exposition

I suppose the seed of this production dates back to the Dina Merrill studio, circa spring of 2001. A vast expanse of obtuse and dilapidated 70's carpet bearing mysterious stains, low hanging florescent tubes and faded blue exercise mats, everything mended by duct tape and smelling of the history of teenagers' sweat. This studio is (or was) my least favorite of the work spaces at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, but it's where we adapted small excerpts from Orwell's novel as an ensemble studying at the National Theater Institute.

It stuck with me. And not just the precision and power of Orwell's "fairy story". That way of working stuck with me. It was really the first time in my life I felt the endorphin rush summoned by an ensemble with a modicum of talent and a gargantuan appetite for creation.

Which is why, now that I'm forcing myself to write about it, it makes perfect sense that working with Jon Ferguson on Or The White Whale would bring the possibility of producing Animal Farm flooding back to my conscious life. Jon and his ensembles are the professional version of what enchanted me as a student at NTI. Company created work, brimming with what too often gets overlooked in our standard theatrical model: generosity and playfulness.

So in December of 2007, nearly seven years after the rug burns of the Dina Merrill studio, I began writing my own loose adaptation of Animal Farm, intent on finally ridding the staging of the novel of that meddlesome narrator character. I had coffee with Jon in February. I pitched him the idea. I didn't have to pitch too hard. (Hell, if Moby Dick can be a play...) But the Orwell estate didn't want to talk to us. We ended up tossing my half-finished adaptation in favor of Ian Woolridge's faithful adaptation from 1993.

So here we are. A little more than two months till opening night. We've got an incredible cast, a Cracker Jack design team, a lush and aged venue, and the wonderfully serendipitous timing of the 2008 US Presidential election overlapping our run.

I hope we do ya proud, George (Eric).

Begin (belated)

Today Sally Bell (Assistant Producer) & Jon & I met for a promotional/fundraising meeting at Casey's, the greatest unknown dive bar in Minneapolis. A couple pitchers of PBR sipped over the Twins game & synchro pairs diving in Beijing seemed an oddly appropriate backdrop for ANIMAL FARM discussion. Global competition. Only the strong survive. Anywho, it's happening. We're cast. We've got brilliant people working on all angles of the production. This blog will attempt to track my experience as actor/producer. If that's not interesting to you, hey, the internet is a big place. Seek and ye shall find.