November 24, 2009
London. Green-y beige and red-y-beige room on the 3rd floor of the Hotel Russell, looking down on the little bistro in the park where I had an excellent house red. My luxurious bath is as big as my tiny room, but that’s all right with me. I’m about to take the bath of the gods, a book in my hand and bad English daytime TV in my ear. Spent the time between landing and room-availability at the British Museum, and then wandering around so I’d know where I am between here and Whitehall. Featured display on Moctezuma at the BM. What a glorious place his city on the lake must have been, minus, of course, the perpetual blood sacrifice. The Staffordshire Hoard, Sutton Hoo, the lion hunts of Nineveh, the great doors of cities which are no longer there to guard. Popped the button on one pair of pants in the BM, which leaves me with one pair for the journey, unless I break down and buy another. Three women at the museum café helped me refold my map. The concierge took especial care of me. I do cultivate an appearance of mild retardation while traveling: it encourages kindness in others.
Late. Went through fitful rain to Trafalgar Studio One to see Othello. Arrived early, drank in the Silver Cross, where men who have been working together all day reluctantly part hours later. The Othello was an actor named Lenny Henry, whose major fame, I gather, lies elsewhere, in comedy perhaps. The Desdamona was weak and the Iago was too often inaudible, but the production was a rocket not even these flaws could keep grounded. Othello was sublime. Cassio was sublime. Emilia was excellent. The production was visionary. Tears leapt to my eyes when Iago said, “Now I am yours forever,” at the wicked majesty of it. They did not stop until the end and past. A group of students filled most of the balcony with me, and the kid beside me, seeing the tears running down into my beard, said, “It didn’t hit me that hard.”
I answered, “You have not yet made a terrible mistake,”
Just finished performing Hamlet. Now this London Othello. Hamlet is a juggernaut, messy, passionate, immense. Othello is a spear sailing target. The plays together are two cannons, a mile long, blasting away in the heights, unanswerable.
This Othello has entered the top ten theatrical experiences of my life.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
November 23, 2009
Diotima says in The Symposium, “Love is wanting to possess the good forever.” Nothing comes closer to expressing my feelings on the matter. It also addresses my ability–which others find shallow or suspect–to fall in love in moments. Sometimes the good takes a while to reveal itself. Sometimes it is does not. The good is a momentary flash of beauty as well as an unfolding richness of nature.
Travel anxiety has become travel excitement.
Diotima says in The Symposium, “Love is wanting to possess the good forever.” Nothing comes closer to expressing my feelings on the matter. It also addresses my ability–which others find shallow or suspect–to fall in love in moments. Sometimes the good takes a while to reveal itself. Sometimes it is does not. The good is a momentary flash of beauty as well as an unfolding richness of nature.
Travel anxiety has become travel excitement.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
November 22, 2009
Stressful Sunday morning. All stress comes from outside. It arrives betimes. And, it being Sunday morning, very little can be done about any of it just now.
One more performance of Hamlet. This has been an outstanding experience. The cast is sweet and funny, the play a continual revelation. I have been happier backstage than I had ever been before. I will feel bereft in a few hours. I feel bereft now. I don’t know why exactly this experience should have been so memorable. Maybe it’s the greatness of the piece we’re addressing. Adam sets the stage by being the most committed and yet the merriest and least temperamental star imaginable. Contact with the young is the finest unstated perquisite of the work I do. I leave early, though, skip the parties, lest some delicate something is worn out by my dwelling too long.
And that is pretty much the story of my life.
CL is certainly in the running for handsomest man in the world. I sit backstage and look at him. Each expression on his face exhibits a different form of beauty, a smile, the vacant look, attention, the other worldly glittering of dark eyes.. There is no way the features compose that is not beautiful. It’s like staring at the best painting in the world, except even the best painting in the world does not possess dignity and kindness, as he is. He is beyond even envy.
Dinner last night between acts with Crawford, and TB and his mother. Our waitress was obsequious to the point of irony.
Stressful Sunday morning. All stress comes from outside. It arrives betimes. And, it being Sunday morning, very little can be done about any of it just now.
One more performance of Hamlet. This has been an outstanding experience. The cast is sweet and funny, the play a continual revelation. I have been happier backstage than I had ever been before. I will feel bereft in a few hours. I feel bereft now. I don’t know why exactly this experience should have been so memorable. Maybe it’s the greatness of the piece we’re addressing. Adam sets the stage by being the most committed and yet the merriest and least temperamental star imaginable. Contact with the young is the finest unstated perquisite of the work I do. I leave early, though, skip the parties, lest some delicate something is worn out by my dwelling too long.
And that is pretty much the story of my life.
CL is certainly in the running for handsomest man in the world. I sit backstage and look at him. Each expression on his face exhibits a different form of beauty, a smile, the vacant look, attention, the other worldly glittering of dark eyes.. There is no way the features compose that is not beautiful. It’s like staring at the best painting in the world, except even the best painting in the world does not possess dignity and kindness, as he is. He is beyond even envy.
Dinner last night between acts with Crawford, and TB and his mother. Our waitress was obsequious to the point of irony.
November 20, 2009
Minutes until I leave to go to tonight’s performance. The one review I’ve seen was judicious. It didn’t mention me, but that could be well as well as ill.
Work proceeds on several fronts at once, plays and screenplays, a review for MountainXpress. I am a tsunami of energy. I’m going to ride this wave until the next loping disappointment comes, which I have learned will subdue me, regardless of my determination that it not.
Lunch with DJ and Kermit. Laughed so hard that I gave myself a stomach ache.
Cold gather outside the windows. I am fearful of it. And of practically nothing else.
Made paintings of their scenes for Trinity and Adam, will haul them to the theater tonight.
Minutes until I leave to go to tonight’s performance. The one review I’ve seen was judicious. It didn’t mention me, but that could be well as well as ill.
Work proceeds on several fronts at once, plays and screenplays, a review for MountainXpress. I am a tsunami of energy. I’m going to ride this wave until the next loping disappointment comes, which I have learned will subdue me, regardless of my determination that it not.
Lunch with DJ and Kermit. Laughed so hard that I gave myself a stomach ache.
Cold gather outside the windows. I am fearful of it. And of practically nothing else.
Made paintings of their scenes for Trinity and Adam, will haul them to the theater tonight.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
November 18, 2009
Deliciously awful weather, affording the opportunity, after a quick trip to the gym, of staying home and writing all day. So I did, at least in part, but some of the time and much of the energy was taken up wrestling Final Draft in submission. Also, alas, my lap top with the Max Ernst wallpaper died in my hand, going out with a brief hiss, like the snuffing of a fire. Went through a cautionary round of backing-up before I finally got down to work. Cathy lent me a DVD of Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent, which for some reason reawakened my interest in screenplays. They are far more tedious to write than stageplays, if more fun to think of.
Sat in Irish Renaissance listening to my students deliver their reports, speaking names that I haven’t thought of since graduate school. They discover Stephen Hero as I did thirty years ago; they will forget Stephen Hero as I did until yesterday afternoon. But I am reading Ulysses on the cross-trainer, which, for its atomic, compact structure, like the varying rhythm of running feet, is exactly right.
Maud the cat climbs to an eminence, beside the Christmas cactus, where she can have loftier perspective on the world.
Deliciously awful weather, affording the opportunity, after a quick trip to the gym, of staying home and writing all day. So I did, at least in part, but some of the time and much of the energy was taken up wrestling Final Draft in submission. Also, alas, my lap top with the Max Ernst wallpaper died in my hand, going out with a brief hiss, like the snuffing of a fire. Went through a cautionary round of backing-up before I finally got down to work. Cathy lent me a DVD of Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent, which for some reason reawakened my interest in screenplays. They are far more tedious to write than stageplays, if more fun to think of.
Sat in Irish Renaissance listening to my students deliver their reports, speaking names that I haven’t thought of since graduate school. They discover Stephen Hero as I did thirty years ago; they will forget Stephen Hero as I did until yesterday afternoon. But I am reading Ulysses on the cross-trainer, which, for its atomic, compact structure, like the varying rhythm of running feet, is exactly right.
Maud the cat climbs to an eminence, beside the Christmas cactus, where she can have loftier perspective on the world.
November 17, 2009
Stepped into Walgreen’s, where I was confronted with aisles of Christmas stuff. A wave of sadness came over me that I have not yet shaken.
Stepped into Walgreen’s, where I was confronted with aisles of Christmas stuff. A wave of sadness came over me that I have not yet shaken.
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