More on Uncle Vanya at Lincoln Center Festival

Thoughts are flooding in fast and furious.  The purity of this production staggers me.  I have to go back and read the other translations I have of this play.  Part of the poetry of this production was embedded in the entrances of every single character.  What was being said onstage before any character entered either reflected on that particular character or provided a stark contrast to that character.  I cannot count how many entrances were like this but one in particular I vividly remember: Sonia is complaining about how plain she is and Yelena enters just at the perfect moment to counter-pose the two.  This was like sculpture to me.  It was truly great art.  Unforgettable art. In a world of corruption, and it's everywhere, there was no corruption here.  Nothing was ruined.  And it was so simple.  The actors played clear, clean intentions unmuddled by garbage.  The whole vision of the production true to Chekhov.  If I could challenge myself to clean up the entrances on "Belles" in this way and to simplify the language where it needs it in the way this production has done, I would have a shot at something real.  So I throw down the glove to myself.  Thank you Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton and Tamas Ascher.  On Ascher's website, it says his productions of Chekhov have run 5 to 7 years in Hungary where there is still a repertory system.  I well know how shows and actors improve with time, having performed as Aphra Behn from 1996 to 2011 and as Jane Austen from 2005 and still going.  Why, why can't we go back to this system in the United States?  It is our loss. http://lincolncenterfestival.org/index.php/2012-uncle-vanya

Pitch-perfect production last night at Lincoln Center - stunning emotionally - the acting, the directing, the adaptation - all faultless:  http://lincolncenterfestival.org/index.php/2012-uncle-vanya.  Makes me want to get to work on everything, inspiring, stirring, can't stop thinking about it!

Toolbar gone - no pictures - help?

I have now entered the "new post" section of my blog about 20 times and the tool bar is incomplete.  It will not let me post photos.  I hope to have this resolved at some point but will struggle thru for now.  If anyone is reading this and can show me how to get my tool bar back, please send instructions in the comments section.  Thanks!

Abundance...

Have been using my pages mainly to write about my bookings.  I've had a good bit of work the last few months.  First a reading of "Rust" a new 10-minute play I wrote for the Blue Roses Douglas Stevens Infusion Reading Series in May held at the Bruce Mitchell Room at ART/NY.  "Rust" having to do with the way suburban areas have devolved (meant in the archaic sense) in the "Rust Belt" state of Ohio.  In June, I was invited to guest write a blog entry and appear as Jane Austen at a benefit for Going To Tahiti Productions adaptation of Persuasion.  Also in June, I directed a reading of the CBS Radio Version of As You Like It adapted by Brewster Morgan at the Players Club.  In July I was asked to play Miss Maria Mainwaring (prounounced "Mannering") in a reading of an adaptation of Jane Austen's Lady Susan put on by Theater 2020 at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Brooklyn Heights.  Such varied activity has been stimulating, exciting and fun.  Being a Mom, though, I feel as if I've got ADD and I don't know which direction to look first.  I have plays to improve and submit, a hilarious show about Jane Austen that I love to do and an acting resume of which I've been quite neglectful.  And then there's the directing side of me!  Some would say, an embarassment of riches, while I say, I don't know which direction to turn.  Each has an aspect that I love.  Some might think I am just tossed about from project to project lost without a compass on the professional ocean of theatre work.  This is defining me right now.  But I like to think it is shaping me too.  Our child won't be little forever and I must choose to look at this as the universe's way of preparing me for something larger that will come my way in the not too distant future.  This is the optomist in me.  In a jaded world - and I consider myself jaded too - I still feel positive about what can happen in the theatre - what theatre actually makes possible not just for me but for everyone.