All good things......

All good things must come to an end. Right? That's what the proverbial they say, right? I can accept that, I'm okay with that. Even if it is kind of sad, I'm okay with that.

What about mediocre things? Do they just go on forever? Finish this sentence, "All things that are barely satisfactory must..."

A quick scan of my surroundings tells me that the end of that sentence is "perpetuate and multiply." Why is tolerable the norm in our society? Many years ago, I learned, from my brother, the meaning of "tilting at windmills" and I have endeavored to do so ever since, (with a few temporary lapses in motivation over the years). I'm not saying I've transcended mediocrity, alas I am firmly entrenched in it. Though, I am not content with being there and every day I rage against the dying of the light, to speak in borrowed cliche.

I do seem to be the odd one out in this. I see others around me putting half their heart (or ass) into their work and being content with lackluster results. I have in no way perfected my craft(s), but I do always look for what I could have done better and try to improve. I set standards for myself I can't possibly reach. Not from masochistic desire, but because it forces me to continually try to excel. I forget, at times, that not everyone feels the same as I. I see my peers struggling to achieve average and forget they don't have the same standards and therefore should not be judged as someone who wants to succeed.

My promise to you is, if there actually is a 'you' reading this, I will no longer expect others to be good at what they do. I will no longer expect others to want to be good at what they do. I will bask in the tepid glow of the mediocre. I will be pleasantly surprised when someone breaches the threshold average. I will find creative ways to compliment without actually commenting on the work. I will simply smile and show my appreciation for what others do, much the same way you smile at your neighbor when he's walking his one-eyed, three-legged dog.

Wide Eyed Productions presents: A Girl Wrote It 2012

Wide Eyed Productions presents: A Girl Wrote It 2012

Wide Eyed Productions, now in its fifth season, has brought back its festival of female playwrights entitled A Girl Wrote It (AGWI). For the sake of full disclosure, it should be said that my work was presented by Wide Eyed as part of a the original A Girl Wrote It last season. The evening is presented in support of the 50/50 in 2020 project, an effort to increase the 17% of plays produced written by women to 50% by the year 2020.

Wide Eyed has been producing solid work for years and has returned to the venue where it all started, the Richmond Shepard Theater located at 309 East 26th Street, NYC. The show runs Thur, Fri, Sat @ 8pm and Sundays @ 3pm. Tickets are reasonably priced at $18.00.

The evening features nine short pieces by seven playwrights. Each has their own style and unique take on life, love, relationships and loss. The evening's line up:

Being Late

By - Judith Goudsmit

Yes

By Bekah Brunstetter

Bologna Sandwiches

By Erin Singleton

Penicillin

By Deirdre O’Connor

Jeans

By Liz Magee

Early Michigan

By Heather Lynn MacDonald

Robot

By Judith Goudsmit

Posing

By Laura Maria Censabella

Stones Fall, Birds Fly

By Laura Maria Censabella

Goudsmit, Singleton & Magee have written smart and poignant monologues that serve as transitions between the longer works. Liz White begins the night with the apt opener, Being Late, a perfect match of writer and actor as White has the energy and chops to sell Goudsmit's deep and idiosyncratic humor. Amy Lee Pearsall performs Singleton's monologue with a magnetism that brings life to the charm and pain of Bologna Sandwiches. Carly Knight ably portrays the disenchanted and frustrated humor to Magee's Jeans while Savvy Clement gives an impressively haunting performance of Goudsmit's Robot.

While each of these monologues entertains and provokes, AGWI's short plays are the larger attraction of the evening. Bekah Brunstetter's Yes is a witty microcosm of relationships that will tickle even the most bitterly jaded. The cast, Andrew Harris and Sarah Cook, are both that rare sort of actor that can nail comic timing and never lose a moment of honesty. Ali Scaramella and Michael Komala show the pitfalls of being young and single with performances that delight in Deirdre O'Connor's Penicillin. Heather Lynn MacDonald provides the most thoughtful piece of the evening with Early Michigan. The script provides opportunity for actors to shine and Sky Seals, Lisa Mamazza, Patrick Bonck & Judy Merrick seize it. 

The final two pieces of the evening are by Wide Eyed's Resident Playwright, Laura Maria Censabella. Nate Faust and Dana Mazzenga offer two of the strongest performances of the evening in Posing and bring integrity to characters that might be dismissed as caricatures in the hands of lesser actors. The last piece of the evening, Stones Fall, Birds Fly, is peformed by Curzon Dobell and is worth the wait. Dobell's natural charisma enriches a beautifully written piece that had me floating out of the theater.

There are limitations to the production and the space, but nothing that detracts from the evening. Opinions may vary as to what piece is more enjoyable than others, but one aspect of AGWI is undeniable. The collective talent of the actors involved in A Girl Wrote It is not to be missed. Treat yourself to this night of talented writers and amazing performances!

Summer Wind

The song Summer Wind just came on. It’s a great song but holds a little different meaning for me than it might for others. (sings)  “My fickle friend, the summer wind” may invoke a nice stroll in Central Park for some. Or the wind coming of the water at Coney Island for others. Not for me, it’s something quite different. You see, I come from the desert and summer is a different beast for my people. I’ve lived in the city for the last seven years so I don’t experience the sensation much anymore, but last week while making some dinner, I turned on the oven, for the first time in months, to preheat. I forgot I had turned it on and was doing other things and it was about a half hour before I got back to the oven. I grabbed the pan of spinach/potato pancakes and bent over to put them in the oven. I opened the door and that wave of heat wafted out and covered my face, making me do that half-shrug, close-your-eyes turn away. And I thought of home. That’s what a summer wind is like for us. Growing up, that was the sensation every day when opening the door to leave home. Well, if there were several extremely high wattage bulbs inside of the oven it would have been the same sensation, it was blindingly bright in the summers growing up. I think I got my first pair of sunglasses when I was six or seven. Not for any sense of style or a desire to be cool, it was out of necessity.  Now I forget to wear them. It gets bright in the city sometimes, but nothing compared to what it was like back then.

When I was in my twenties I went to work in restaurants, like you do. I worked with a lot of people from all over theworld and I did my time in the kitchen as well as in the front of the house. I use to stand next to this huge conveyor belt oven for hours on end. The heat blasting from it reminded of my childhood and made the job much more bearable than it should have been. I’d take things out of the oven and put them in the pass through window, under heat lamps. Every now and then, when missing the proper utensils, I would grab pans with my bare hands and pull them quickly out of the oven. Or grab a plate that had been under the heat lamp for ten minutes without thinking twice. It took a while for me to realize that other people in the kitchen would wince as I did things like this. Apparently this was not normal. My early years in the desert seemed to have helped me develop some sort of extraordinary ability, my own quirky little super power, if you will. The summer winds have conditioned me, I can stand the heat.

(sings to herself as she exits)

The summer wind came blowin in, from across the sea

It lingered there, so warm and fair, to walk with me

All summer long, we sang a song and strolled on golden sands

mmm-mm, mm the summer wind

Like painted kites, those days and nights, went flying by

The world was new, beneath a blue umbrella sky

Then softer than a piper man, one day it called…

(beat)

mmm-mm, mm the summer wind

A Life Unexamined?

Was it Plato who said that thing about a life unexamined? About it not being worth much, or worth living? I can never remember the exact wording of things. Doesn’t seem really that important does it? I mean, as long as you get the sentiment, right? Anyway, a life unexamined, that is what I live. Not out of ignorance but by choice. I used to examine my life very closely, so did everyone else. I used to try to find every way possible to improve myself, could I eat better, go to the gym more, get into relationships with fewer douchebags. Not anymore, I’m tired of being my own worst critic. Now I’m just me, mistakes and all, and I love myself for it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still aware of my short comings, with parents like mine I’ll never be able to forget them, I just don’t beat myself up over them. I know that guilt isn’t going to get me to the gym any faster, but wheezing as I climb the stairs for the train will. It will happen when it happens and I can’t rush those things. When I get tired of being treated like shit I’ll stop dating guys I meet in bars. When I no longer want to spend a good portion of every day in the bathroom I’ll stop shopping at the bodega on the corner and start going to the farmer’s market on Saturdays. I look at it this way, I stopped smoking when I decided I didn’t want to die a slow painful death and have everyone I love watch me deteriorate, right? It happened to coincide with the smoking bans and me not going to bars as much, but it was ultimately my decision. We all have issues, problems, neuroses, why should we spend time dwelling on them? Why should I spend my energy on all the things that I’m not instead of thinking about all of the things that I am? There are plenty of people in this world who will be glad to tell you where you are falling short in life, let them do their job and you do yours, love who you are. Freckles and all, or is it warts?

Rage & Apathy

Rage and apathy seem to be two characteristics that have always defined me. A stark juxtaposition, yes, but true none-the-less. The ratio is not balanced though. I would say a generous estimate would be 90% apathy and 10% rage. The rage is well veiled though so it probably comes across more like 5 or 6%, but trust me, it’s at least 10%. Now countless former-lovers and therapists have theorized about the origins of my rage and have generated a few respectable theories regarding it. I won’t go into detail because I would never, in any way, want to validate the opinions of former-lovers. I am curious though, about the origins of my apathy. I never much cared about where it came from before, but as it has become and increasing presence in my life I feel I should get to know it better. Kinda’ like a cellmate. My family isn’t typically apathetic, except about those commercials for starving children, like everyone is. My parents are pretty adamant about most things, especially their politics. In fact, most family holidays devolve into some ridiculous debate over some political ideology. Not something where you could understand the conviction of both sides, like… something I’m sure both sides have conviction about, but about things that seem rather pointless. Like whether campaign donations should be tax deductible when donating to independent or tea-party candidates. (beat) The argument being that it’s really just a form of charity because they have no real chance of winning… Or the argument my mother makes against universal health care, that it shouldn’t exist if it doesn’t cover hearing aids. Not wheelchairs or seeing-eye-dogs for the blind, but hearing aids. And her hearing is great, this is just a moral stance she’s taking… on hearing aids. No arguments over the two-party system or the collapse of the free market, just silly little details. My family, and too many people in this country, just find some silly little argument to hang their hat on and then stick to it. Sometimes the arguments have merit, but mostly they don’t. It’s just people needing to feel they are right about something in their lives. I think it’s this conviction towards silly little arguments that makes me shut down. Everyone else’s lack of apathy is what causes my apathy. And my apathy towards everyone else’s convictions is what causes my rage, I think. Why can’t I get worked up over something like my mother can? Why can’t I argue pointless doctrine until I’m blue in the face? I want to have conviction too, dammit! I want something to matter to me as much as that, but it doesn’t. It just doesn’t. And that makes me angry. 

Female Doctors...

I have a friend - who will remain nameless so he can stay married - who has this theory about women in their chosen professions. He says to a group of our friends, “I will only go to a female doctor.” As all of our presumptions of his lechery begin to mount he says, “think about it, for a woman to be successful she has to be ‘really fucking good’ at what she does.” … Those in the group who considered themselves more progressive were ready to quickly correct his thinking… but nobody spoke. It’s the kind of thing that you want to argue the validity of but can’t because it is only mirroring what’s present in society. Is there something wrong with what he said or the society that makes the statement true? I hold two degrees in Theater and in my studies I read an innumerable amount of plays, about a quarter of them were written by female playwrights. I have a great admiration for many of them, not because they are women but because of their writing. Women like Aphra Behn, Theresa Rebeck, Lillian Hellman, Suzan Lori-Parks, Beth Henley and Susan Glaspell inspire me not because of their gender but because they know their craft so well. I subscribe to the theory that the title playwright should be spelled w-r-i-g-h-t and not w-r-i-t-e because the former spelling conjures the image of a master of their craft while the latter merely evokes someone with pen and paper. When it comes to learning a craft, I believe a “Y” or “X” chromosome is not the determinate factor for mastery. I don’t want to believe that there can be any merit to my friend’s theory, but then I think of the six playwrights I cited as examples. They are all incredible writers, gifted beyond most of their contemporaries. My friend’s theory states that a woman must be exceedingly good at what she does to achieve success. It also implies that a man can be simply average at his job and still have success. I feel like I should be offended by this, but then I realize how hard it is for me to think of a female playwright that is simply “average”. How many “average” male playwrights can you think of?