First week of 'Po has come to a close...all the classes have been had at least once...yeah. It's not special. I'm already over most of them, especially History of Theatre, taught by a dead thing named Okey (pronounced Oak-Key) Chenoweth. More on him in a moment.
In better news --- I'm making my return to the stage this fall, in the comedy The Servant of Two Masters, playing two roles, it seems --- of Pantalone and Brighella. Perhaps I'll alternate at performances? Either way, it's worth seeing, as the show is going to be almost entirely improvised, guaranteeing a different performance every time you see it. It runs the last two weeks of October, a sick amount of performances...and it will be shilled practically every time you read this page, so get ready for it.
Not having acted all of last year, I'd forgotten was absolute madness the process of auditioning and being called back for a show is, especially if you care about getting a particular role. It's absolute proof that inside every actor and actress is the soul of an extreme masochist, who would like nothing more than to slam nails into their sternum and bang their head into walls for shits and giggles. Actors just have different ways of expressing these desires, is all.
In an effort to keep myself from sitting here all weekend and continually refreshing my mail box 'til the cast list arrived (and yeah, I'll deny it to your face, but that's absolutely what I would've done, I'm sure), I clearly went and bought plays for class and saw some stuff. Went to Here Lies Jenny, Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, and bare facts at Ars Nova. Brief thoughts on Here Lies Jenny follow, with others later in the week:
Here Lies Jenny: Firstly, this show is being staged in the Zipper Theatre, easily the coolest space in the city right now. It's an old zipper factory, turned into a theatre, and it's very Kit Kat Klub-atmosphere when you walk in, it's dark and there's a nice bar and lounge. The theatre itself is all full of seats that were taken out of different kinds of cars. It was just so f'n cool. The show itself was much better than it had any right to be. It used the songs of Kurt Weill to tell the story of Jenny (Bebe Neuwirth), a down on her luck woman who stumbles into a shoddy German bar, carrying a bag full of all she owns. In the bar are an old time bartender, two thugs, and a piano player. There was no dialogue, just the songs and dancing, as they told Jenny's past and then saw Jenny gradually getting the strength to rebound from the downward place she was in, put her past behind her, and move on. That description does the show no justice, of course --- it's a show you really have to experience, as there isn't much that's 'spelled out' for you. That's one of the things I loved most about it, it was very visceral in the way it hit you, and you can really interpret it and the songs to mean different things, depending on your own experiences in life. Plus it was only 70 minutes or so, so it was a quick experience that definitely lingers with you afterward.
So yeah...classes have been a rough mix, the worst of the worst being class with this man, Okey Chenoweth. He's ancient, he rambles like you wouldn't believe, he's trying to make the class (a lecture on the history of theatre, reading some Greek plays) into something it's not (an acting class), and he's just so incredibly disorganized and not in control of what's happening, it makes me insane. I can deal with the fact that he's 107 years old, but for God's sake, is a syllabus too much to ask?
Furthermore, he kept expanding things and rambling JUST to take up the whole two and a half hour length of the class. I cannot tolerate peopel who do this. Teach what you have to teach, then LET US GO. What's the point of just sitting there, wasting time out of principle? I'm sure they have better things they could be doing, and if they don't, I'll happily give them some of the piles of stuff I have to take care of. He then pulled out this horrible video from like 1980 about Greek theatre, clearly showing all his old hang outs --- you know the Parthenon, the non-gay Colloseum, etc --- it was monstrous.
Okey then wrapped up the madness by spending 10 minutes telling us how he basically doesn't give out A's, b/c some STUPID girl asked him, which was just the recipe for disaster. IMO --- anyone who has to ask said question pretty much is already not getting an A, so why make the suffering that more extravagant? X delete. Okey Chenoweth, you are so on my less as your namesake would cause.
Tomorrow, I've been asked to speak to the students at Immediate Decision Day about my experiences at the 'Po, and how great life is here and how happy I am and confident in my education and future. I'll let all that act as its own punchline, really...with the rare form that I've been in all week, why wouldn't I be asked to do such a thing, really.
I'd also like to make something else clear: anyone else who tries to talk to me about internships is going to find a black mamba waiting for them in their bedsheets. If one --- count 'em, one --- person tries to tell me about their awesome internship, how easy it was, how they're getting hired immediately after it, etc --- then they're just gonna be deep sixed faster than they can count.
The worst thing happened this afternoon at work, when the girl I work with (who, not gonna lie, had perfectly good intentions --- but then again, so did Stalin, and look where that got everyone) talked to me for 30 minutes about how she'd already done two internships, wanted to do an internship AND a co-op in the spring (b/c she just needed the credits and had the time...hi, want to take some of MY credits for me?), and then told me all her friend's interning success stories.
It was at that point that my chief desire became to find some seemingly harmless object nearby --- a spoon, perhaps --- and shove it up my ass. You may be wondering why --- and the answer is simple: if I'm going to feel that kind of pain, I'm going to do it to myself.
So yeah --- we don't talk about int***nships.
In closing: everyone should go out and by the "Eternal Sunshine" soundtrack CD. It's beyond delightful...can't wait for the movie to come out on DVD at the end of the month.
Leaving you now with a quote from Natalie Joy Johnson of bare, on why people related to her character in the show so well:
"We've all had those moments, 'I'm thirty pounds too heavy', 'my nose is too big', 'I'm not black enough...'"
--- clearly issues all of us must reckon with.
Peace.
/jt
I realize you posted this ages ago, and I hope beyond hope that you have since grown up.
To speak of Okey in this way--and publicly--is a clear indication that you have no sense of art, of life, of what it means to respond to the world in which you're in. To be in the same room as Okey Chenoweth is a gift, and I'm sorry that you were blinded by self-importance to see that.
Reconsider your words, spoken of a man, who, above all else, teaches his students kindness.
Why post such hateful words?
--former high school student of Mr. Chenoweth
Posted by: May | February 01, 2009 at 03:45 PM