Last post
This is the last post!
Last post of 2003!
Happy New Year!!!!
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December 31, 2003
December 30, 2003
One Year
Well, as of tonight it has been one year of "blogging" for Random Fusion.
Yay!
The first post went out for a Blog*Spot blog which I then updated to a professional account in the new year. I had actually been writing journal like entries on my website, but actual blogging didnt actually begin until December 30, 2002.
A lot has changed in the last year.
Recap
-quit job after three years
-was unemployed and not going to school for the first time EVER
-got new job
-Shauna moved in with me
-got engaged
-had second christmas with Shauna
-had second birthday with Shauna
-oh yea...got engaged
-started using Movable Type
-started learning CSS
The past year has been hard and great by turns. Employment wise, the year has sucked ass bad. Personal life wise, this year, was the best it has been ever. I look forward to all that 2004 brings.
December 28, 2003
Lazy Day
Well, here we are, another lazy sunday with nothing to do but be lazy.
The weather outside today is pretty nasty (lots of wind, snow and blowing snow) so I am opting to stay inside, play computer games, read web sites and generally do as little as I can. I COULD do some house work and such, but I think that can all wait till tomorrow after work. I tend to want to clean when I get home from work rather then when I am home resting.
There isnt too much else going on in my life at the moment (nothing new anyway) other then that I went to see Paycheck, the new Ben Affleck movie, yesterday and wasnt completely impressed. True it was a good movie, not "OH MY GOD DID YOU SEE THAT" kind of movie and not even a "yea, i think ill see it again" kind of flick. I didnt mind spending the money on it and I think when it comes out on tape, I might rent it once to watch with Shauna.
Work is getting a little stressful, and I think deep down, despite the fact I love working there, I am glad the Bay wont be my career. Ron, my boss' boss is around regularly now (he had a heart attack and was away resting) and he makes me nervous and I dont like feeling that way. He doesnt do it on purpose and he seems to be a very nice guy, but he still makes me nervous. One of my immediate kind of superiors at work is getting on my nerves. She, while being a nice person overall, seems to have trouble taking responsibility for her work. She seems to spend a lot of time doing other things then her work, which she is continualy getting help for. I dont mind helping someone if they need it, but it seems to be taking me away from my own work too much and I dont want to get in trouble for it.
Meh.
I think I will go hack and slash and kill and maim some monsters in Diablo II.
December 27, 2003
Hey, What, No Changes?
Nope, none yet.
Yet. When I adopted the last layout (which was one that I had used before but without the center container) I had noticed that almost every week I had an entry about how I was going to, had already or I was in the process of changing the layout. I saw a lot of posts, so I said that I would leave the layout alone for a month, which is coming up pretty soon. I am thinking out the layout this time before I try and implement it. I have a rough idea of what I want, but cant really figure out how to make it.
A fair number of the blogs listed in my links are there because I like the look of them. Some are very simple and some are full of colour and pictures and art.
For my new layout, I would like to try and implement a kind of painting like look. If you have ever seen the DVD for Vanilla Sky, the opening dvd title screen is what I would like, which I think would take a lot of flash.
For now, the layout here will not change. I am only going to implement it, once I am sure that I am going to be happy with it. So what you wont see is hours and hours of dreamweaver time, hundreds of changes and me going, ahhh thats crap, NEXT! When you do see a change, it will be a good change and you will be amazed.
December 25, 2003
Pre Boxing Day Cheer
Well, the familial obligations for christmas are over, Shauana and I are at home now after a day full of family, presents and food and we are very full and sleepy.
It was a spendid day and I am very pleased with how it all went.
To those people who come here and read, I hope your day went as well as mine did. To my friends specifically, bless you and your family on this day. Peace be yours for the new year.
Seasons Greetings
December 23, 2003
Droste
Nothing tastes like milk chocolate. Sure, you can have milk chocolote milk and stuff (or any other product that you can eat that says it tastes like milk chocolate) but the flavour of the actual thing, is something that is almost undescribeable. I am sitting here, playing around on the computer and eating some Droste chocolate from work. For some reason the store bought 80 gazillion boxes of the stuff and then let it sit in the back for half a year. So now we are pusing it hard before it all goes bad (some of which has and we are selling for less then a buck). I bought some cheap stuff and brought it home to munch on. Great stuff.
I have almost gone a whole month without changing the style of the site (go me) and I am pretty proud. I still really have no idea what I want out of the site (other then for it to look REALLY good). So at this point, a new lay out wont go in half assed and be there for a week. I am going to spend the next week or so working on it as much as I can without going insane. I liked the blade runner image I had from before, but the site just wasnt mine then, it was a copy of someone elses.
I have the next two days off and I am looking forward to some rest and relaxation. Work has been insane leading up to christmas and I was getting fairly frazzled. It's odd, I wasnt loosing it with the customers, it was my fellow employees I was getting frustrated with.
**For sensible reasons, I have chosen to, at this time, not talk about them in detail.**
I posted something at the OTHER Random Fusion this morning and am posting here tonight. I will go over to the other two blogs I have in a little bit, put something there and then post to two fishes. I should put links up sometime soon.
Eventually.
Look for a sort of resolution list, or maybe a important "To Do" list with the coming new lay out. Or maybe not.
Or maybe. Who knows.
December 19, 2003
University Paper
Here's something I wrote a few years ago.
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For as long as there have been plays there have been directors. Since Aristotle all the way to Brecht the director?s part in the play and its performance seems to have been understated. The actor is always in the spotlight and therefore can end up with praise that could be credited to the director. A good director can mold untrained actors, develop beginning designers, and even show ?green? technicians a thing or two. The director is a Jack of All Trades in the theatre. The director should have at the very least a working knowledge of everything that is connection with the play he or she is directing. A director who knows the difference between a Fresnel and a 6x9 base up Leko will be better able to tell lightning designer how to express his ideas. A director that understands what will go into the building of a set of stairs or a ramp can often assist the set designer in construction ideas, although it is considered bad when the director hassles the technicians about their jobs. There is more onstage then just actors, there is light, sound, set pieces, costumes, props, and a multitude of other bits and pieces and a director that understands that and works with each piece will improve his play greatly.
Every director has a different theory and approach to the theater. Every director has a different approach to actors, to the stage, to the designers, to the technicians, to the very theater itself. Every director, by learning what works for him and doesn?t work for him, will eventually begin to apply a group of ideas and practices to every production that he or she is involved with. Sometimes so many people find that directors theories interesting or even revolutionary in nature, that the director will soon find others using his theories in their productions. And if the director becomes enough well known then a publication of that directors theories will occur. Over the centuries many directors have come and gone and left behind their theories. Many revolutions have come to the theater aesthetically and technically and at every revolution there are directors adapting, changing and inventing new ways to look at the play.
Bertolt Brecht was born in Bavaria in 1898 and despite being bored by regular schooling Brecht found that he had a natural talent for writing. Brecht came into the theater at a time when there was widespread change in almost every aspect of the theater. Aesthetically there was almost a world wide revolution in the theater. There was a simultaneous drive for more realistic productions and drive to experiment with everything to find better ways of getting what the director wanted out of the play. Brecht wrote in first play called Baal very shortly after the end of World War One. What Brecht wanted out of the theater, the actors, the play, the technical aspects of the production was to bring the message to the audience in a way that made them want to act on it. Brecht felt that the message of the play was the most important thing to get across to the audience. Brecht is one of the few dramatists who is just as well known for his theories as for his plays. Developing his own form of theater Brecht wrote plays that are episodic in structure. Brecht developed a style of theater called ?Epic Theater?, the goal of this type of theater, was as Brecht always said, to instruct. Brecht had several points that stated the purpose of his Epic theater.
To make the spectator a critical observer who must make decisions
Brecht felt that modern theater should not be presented as if the people who were seeing the production were simpletons. Brecht wanted his audience to make decisions for itself based on what they saw onstage.
To present the world as an object and to do this through dialectical demonstration.
Brecht wanted the theater to be a place of learning, not educational as in schooling, but learning about the relationship between society and environment. Brecht wanted to separate theater from its present affiliations and make theater into a form of instructive entertainment.
To focus on the process, not the outcome of the play
At times it was more important to see the how and what an actor did to make the message more clear. Whether or not this man did this instead of that, interesting was beside the point it was how they solved their problems that was the important thing.
To explore the social determinism of the individual, showing the historical nature of human misfortune, the changeable order of nature, and the manipulability of man and his environment
Brecht was a Marxist and he felt that man could effect his environment and that the environment could affect man. He wanted to use the theatre to explore the way that man was manipulated and the way the environment was manipulated.
Shaw has been called one of Britain?s greatest literary minds, in the same league with Shakespeare and many others, was called the most prolific writer since Jonathan Swift. Shaw was an actor?s director, he felt that it was important to not to ?impose upon the artistic nature of the individual?. Shaw was above all things kind to his actors, like most directors, and very much unlike Zeffirelli, Shaw felt that the director should suggest not order the actor around. In pre-rehearsal Shaw felt that the director should know exactly what he wants and how to do it so that each actor is dictated specifically his or her place logically and with some sign of flow. The one thing that I found about Shaw that I did not like was the fact that he felt it wasn?t necessary for the actor to understand the play. During rehearsals, Shaw concentrated on making sure the actors knew and felt comfortable with their movements before moving onto understanding the part. After the actors have mastered their movements the books are dropped and the real work on the characters begins. Shaw felt that at this point it was important for the director to watch the rehearsals like a hawk. Shaw waited until the end of each act to impart his notes, making sure that the actors knew exactly what he meant. Once the actor has full understanding of the text then it is the directors job to ensure that all speech stays individualistic in tone, speed, diction?etc. During the final dress rehearsals the director usually does some touching up to improve the overall final effect, but does not become agitated with a poor final rehearsal, the director should instill his confidence into his actors, a confident cast with do much better than a berated one. In everything that Shaw did he stressed that there always should a tact between the director and his actors. The director should not point out mistakes until he has a solution to fix it.
Vsevelod Emilievich Meyerhold was born near Moscow in 1874. In his second year of law studies he was admitted to the drama school of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, where he studied with Nemirovich Danchenko. He was one of the founding members of the Moscow Art Theater and was involved with many productions there. However, after about four years Meyerhold left the MAT and went out to form his own theater. During the years between 1902 and 1917, Meyerhold experimented with anti-realism and symbolist drama?s. Meyerhold reached his artistic greatness in the thirties when Russia was under the New Economic Policy, which provided more artistic freedom than was usual. In June of 1939, Meyerhold was invited to address the All-Union conference of stage directors. It was expected that at this meeting he would recant his stylistic experimentation, but instead he attacked Soviet controlled theater art and was arrested. Meyerhold was tortured in a soviet labor camp and executed in 1940.
His wife, Zinaida Raikh, who was his leading actress, was found in her apartment brutally murdered. Much of what would be called avant-garde in the theater of the 1960?s and later can be traced back to Meyerhold?s experimentation. Meyerhold experimented with antirealist and constructivist theories that were popular in Europe at the time. Meyerhold said that: Work should be made easy, congenial and uninterrupted, whilst art should be utilized by the new class not only as a means of relaxation but as something ?organically vital? to the labor pattern of the worker. We need to change not only the forms of our art but our methods too. An actor working for the new class needs to reexamine all the canons of the past. The very craft of the actor must be completely reorganized.? Meyerhold was the leading developer on theories about the application of constructivism to the theater, the artist and the actor. Meyerhold attempted to train his actors physically by using techniques from commedia dell?arte, the circus and vaudeville. Meyerhold wanted to shatter the fourth wall convention. On occasion he would leave the house lights on, extend the stage apron into the audience or station performers in the audience. Some of Meyerhold?s best known experiments were undertaken in the 1920?s immediately after the Russian Revolution. He devised an acting system called ?Biomechanics?, which emphasized external physical training and performance style, and suggested that the actor?s body could be trained to operate like a machine. Meyerhold was a director?s director. He felt that the director was the one who was in control of what was going on and that it was the director who was the most important person. In 1905, Meyerhold was invited to direct the Actress Vera Komissarzhevskaya?s company. However, after only two seasons he was forced to leave because of his contention that the director, not the star performer, was the primary theater artist. Meyerhold can be counted among the geniuses of the theater world. His ideas on theater, actors, directors and plays were revolutionary much like the times in which he lived.
Max Reinhardt was born as Max Goldman on September 9, 1873. He began his theatrical life as an actor. Reinhardt believed that everyone, from the director to the musician, scene designer, or painter was an artist involved with the production. In his life Reinhardt directed more than 400 hundred productions. Reinhardt said that as man was made in gods image, that all actors have in them something of the creative spirit and that when ever an actor strives to create his is like god, making man in his image. Many people accused him of having no style of his own and therefore nothing to leave behind. In 1905 he used the first revolving stage for a production of ?A Midsummer?s Night Dream?. Reinhardt was the master of space usage and would constantly find theatres to remodeled to suit a production. As well as using innovative staging techniques, Reinhardt was one of the leading directors to use lighting as a way of expressing the characters emotions. In actors and actresses he looked for those people that were fluid and versatile. He believed that the actor should subordinate him or herself to the spirit or mood of the play.
Sir John Gielgud was born in 1904 to a distinguished family which had numerous actors on the mothers side. He originally wanted to become a stage designer but found that the technical aspects of the designer were to much for him. When he was a young man he went to learn acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London where he studied with Claude Rains. One of the greatest influences on Gielgud was the Russian director Theodore Komisarjevsky. It was from him that Gielgud learned not to act from the outside but rather from within to present a character. Gielgud was the quintessential actor?s director, being an actor himself, and sometimes wearing both hats at the same time, Gielgud understood the problems an actor was facing when preparing a role. He believed that ?A good actor should be skilled enough to adapt his means of presentation according to the demands and quality of the text on which he has to work.? A superb Shakespearean actor and director, Gielgud felt that Shakespeare was redefined by every generation that produced it. Personally, however, Gielgud felt that Shakespeare should be presented as it was written and played as a style of acting, the actors should be dressed in costumes that are relevant to the era of the play. One of the things that I found interesting about Sir John Gielgud was that he worked with the realization that every director has a different approach to a production. He knew that every director had a individual approach to their actors, designers and others, and that that approach had to be respected. Gielgud also liked his actors to arrive early to rehearsals to spend time preparing themselves for the rehearsal. If I was to be directing something of Shakespeare, Hamlet, Much ado about nothing or Henry V, for example, I would look over as much information about Gielgud and Sir Lawrence for ideas on how to approach the production. Some of Gielgud?s methods for rehearsing and approach to actors are methods that I as a director would like to use, but his ideas that you should keep the actors in period costumes seems to be very restrictive.
Joan Littlewood was born in 1915, in Stockwell in London. She grew up surrounded by poverty. When she was a young girl Littlewood went to a Catholic School, not for religious reasons but because it was the closest . It was when the school did its productions of Hamlet and Macbeth that the young Littlewood got her first experience with the theatre. When she was seventeen Joan received a scholarship from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. It was at the academy that little wood met Ewan MacColl, later stage named Jimmie Miller, who would work with her for many years to come. It was through MacColl that Littlewood learned of Agit-Prop, a term used to describe the cultural and political propaganda after the 1917 revolution and later became a means of describing theatrical productions which dealt with politics in revolutionary circumstances. MacColl also introduced Littlewood to the Theatre of Action, a group started by MacColl that hoped to deal with issues concerning Agit-Prop . Working together Littlewood and MacColl began to be know as an explosive left wing activists, what they did was so controversial that they were disliked even by other Left wing groups. Over the years Theatre of Action experimented with many new styles that were developing themselves at the time. Theatre of Action experimented with Meyerhold?s ideas, and those of Piscator and Laban. The Theatre of Action was trying to do what most theatres were trying to do at the time, and that was try and break away from, what they saw, as a constrictive facade and a static style of acting and try and create a theatre that was instead a creation of political themes based on techniques of movement and gesture. Joan was interested in providing a theatre that was for and by the lower class citizens. In the mid thirties the group of talented people that now made up the Theatre of Action, decided that it was time to expand their knowledge and set out to study acting in Russia. The visas that Littlewood and MacColl waited for never arrived and they were forced to find ways of making ends meets. The group ended up forming Theater Union in which Littlewood and MacColl taught their style of acting. Littlewood was interested in developing a form of theatre that was free from all previous constrictions of the last century. She toyed with Brechtian methods when trying to impart a message with her play and especially when she had written a script that had naturalism integrated into it. Littlewood also stressed that the communication of meaning through careful attention to internal rhythms that would communicate the emotion of the scene. Joan Littlewood focused on styles of naturalism and Realism which were unique unto themselves but she created an incredible emphasis on movement and physical representation. In rehearsals Littlewood liked to use improvisation even up to open night, which caused no end of distress to many authors.
The early years of Joseph Chaiken had a profound effect on his later years as a director. He was the youngest son of Russian-Jewish immigrants whom he later described as crazy traumatized people. At a very young age he was forced to remain at home due to a severe heart condition. At the age of ten he was sent to a special clinic in Florida, where ended up putting on shows for his fellow patients. During his years in high school he became skilled at hiding his illness, his Jewish background and his bisexuality all of which were unfashionable at the time. Chaiken like many others, including Stanislavsky had problems accepting the technique of emotional recall. Chaiken rejected Stanislavsky?s methods for four specific reasons. First he felt that an actor who uses the emotional recall is forcing and confining the character to what the actor is like as a person, while it should be that the actor tries his hardest to stretch himself to the role. Second Chaiken felt that when an actor uses the emotional recall he or she is tainting the character with their own personal feelings on the subject. The third reason was a very good one indeed. Everyone who has had painful events occur in their past do their best to try and forget them and do not want to bring them up every time a set of tears are needed, as well the character being portrayed would be doing his/her best to try and forget whatever painful events occurred in the past. The fourth reason was that a person can hardly be expected to truly know someone else?s emotions and can not be expected to remember them and recall them onstage to be used. Chaiken had a firm belief in the Somatic approach to role playing. Chaiken was into involving the physical rather than psychological means to developing an emotion.
Franco Zeffirelli was born into post world war one Italy and grew up in a catholic orphanage in Florence, a cultured provincial city with a lingering feeling of the renaissance. Catholic imagery was an important factor in almost all of Zeffirelli?s productions, he picked this up from his years in the catholic monastery. After World War Two Zeffirelli met Luchino Visconti who would end up having a profound effect on the young directors life. It was from his time with Visconti that Zeffirelli his sense of restless eclecticism which would later become a trademark of all Zeffirelli?s work. Despite the fact that Zeffirelli had enormous reputation for yelling and screaming at his actors, his talent always showed through. He is highly skilled as a director, being able to understand, cope, and solve the many problems that a director must face. Zeffirelli had an affinity for Shakespeare, the opera and film and he combined these at several times in his life with productions such as Otello. Film opera was where Zeffirelli shined as a director, it was here that he showed his talent in getting all the spectacle and the size opera onto the big screen.
Directing is an artform in itself. The million and one things that assault the directors mind during the development of a play can be extremely stressful. When developing what the director wants for his play, many styles and types of theatre are considered. What will the set look like? What kind of message does the play have about society? What kind of actors should be cast for the roles? How should those actors be auditioned? How will the costumes represent what the message is? When looking back at all the directors in this paper I find that all of them have one redeeming quality that would be more than helpful it a production. In Brecht I found that his desire to have and get across the message of the play to the audience was something that many directors are lacking in their productions. Shaw?s demand for a lot of text analysis is also an important thing , the more an actor understands not only his part but those of his fellow actors, the better he or she will be able to present that character in a realistic manner. Meyerhold?s demand that the director is the leading artistic performer of the theatre also strikes a solid cord in me as a director. The actors, the designers, the technicians and even the poster designers are simply tools for the director to get the feeling and message of the play across to the audience. The director should have full control over every little aspect of the production from day one until the curtain goes up on opening night. If attempting some Shakespeare I would look into Sir Gielgud and his methods and ideas for presenting Shakespeare and if I wanted to present some agitational propaganda theatre I would study the works of Joan Littlewood. Directors that confine themselves to a single genre or style of theatrical presentation are limiting their art. It seems that a director, just like a director should be fluid in how he approaches a play or production. Confinement in a single style, no matter how innovative and effective it may seem to be, will lead the director away from what the theatre is?.art, and like theatre art has many forms, from painting to sculpting to metal working. All those things are art but they are nothing like one another, yet a message can be found in each.
December 17, 2003
The Lighting Designer
Light affects what we see, how we see, how we feel, and even how we hear. It is essential to the modern stage's theatrical effectiveness. It is also one of the most powerful tools the director has to control the audiences focus of attention and to enhance their understanding.
Artificial lighting (first candles and then gas) had been used to illuminate the stage since the 17th century, but by 1879 the invention of electric light had transformed overall possibilities for design in the theatre. It made possible complete control of a range of intensities and colours; it could be used flexibly to light or darken different parts of the stage; it provided a source of mood and atmosphere for the actor.
Swiss designer Adolphe Appia understood the artistic possibilities of light in the theatre. In Music and Stage Setting he argued that light should be the guiding principle of all design. He believed that light could unify or bring into harmony all production elements, including two and three dimensional objects, living and inanimate objects, shapes and things. Appia established light as an artistic medium for the theatre designer.
The subtle play of light off of a blank wall can make the audience think of water, a forest, a desert or the sky. Simple colour changes during a scene can make what the actors seem harsh and cold or warm and loving. A deep encompassing red over a large white backdrop, during a scene of love and invoke deep feelings of passion and intensity, many times without the audience being aware that it is the lights that are affecting them as well as the actors.
Many times lighting alone can make a set. With the right lighting, an empty stage, painted only black, can be anything the lighting designer wants. A blue wash with some water motion, can invoke the sea or a lake or rain. A fire gobo (a metal cut out that goes in front of the light) can bring about images of lava or fire.
Combined with sound, light can make anything appear to happen. True magic.
Not Much At The Moment
Not much to post at the moment. More to follow later today.
Look for a Theatre post here, a bit of a computer post over at Two Fishes (with some possible lay out changes going on), and a few quizes over at the live journal page.
I am trying to be busy today and I am failing. I want to go to the bank and get a new bank card, go over to a clients office and get some computer info for them, go to MTYP for a pay cheque I have there and then visit with my dad for a bit. Oh yea, doing laundry and some cleaning would be nice too.
I will at this point, call the day a success if I can get dressed.
Keep your peepers peeled here.
December 14, 2003
Sunday Afternoons...
...are for sitting around and doing as little as possible.
Today I have, played on my playstation, watched a movie, messed around with my live journal and then made a post and then I played some DII (not all in that order). I wrote a really long post about 50 things you did or didnt know about me. You can read it here. I didnt drop anything that most folks dont already know or could guess at. I do believe that there is a line I wont cross. I dont know who is all out there reading what I write and there are some things I dont want to share with the whole world yet.
The day is still fairly young, the apartment is quiet and warm and I think that when I am done this, I will go and clean up the kitchen, make myself some food, bake some cookies and then go watch a christmas movie.
Tomorrow I work from 11 to 730 and I am not looking forward to it. Monday's are always busy to begin with. Then you add on that its christmas time which adds two things; more product for us to put out and sell and more people to come in and buy it all. Tomorrow I will come in and work hard on stock for as long as I can before I have to go work cash, which isnt a whole lot of fun, but I do it well enough.
Enjoy the stuff over at live journal.
December 12, 2003
Theatre, General, Blog and More
This one doesnt really fit in with one single category, so the title will tell you what its about.
Theatre: Diary of Ann Frank
The show itself was very good. When I look at the seperate parts of the play I begin to see some problems (for me anyway). The set was amazing and both the designer and the carpenters deserve a great amount of praise for their masterful set, kudo's to you. The sound design was as good as it could be (Sorry JBJ, it coulda been more challenging for you I am sure) in that the sound effects such as lightning and cars and police cars were pulled off almost flawlessly. The acting of most of the actors was very good. (Andrew, who has shite for brains will not be naming actual names here) The mother of Ann and her father were very good but I found that the actress playing Ann, almost grating at times. I cant imagine a young girl at that age in that time, acting the way she did. If I HAD to rate the play, it would get **** out of *****.
Work
Working at The Bay has been great so far and I really cant complain about it . . . . too much. Ok first. A LOT of the customers are rude. And I mean a lot. I do my best to great each customer in a friendly manner with as much respect as I can. Now, all I expect in return is a thank you. If I tell you where to find pasta, say thank you. If I tell you that those peas are not on sale, and even if this makes you mad, you should say thank you. If I am helping you at the cash register or ringing through your groceries, if I say "Have a nice day, Please come again, or thank you" the polite thing for you to do is to say thanks. It isnt much and it helps make my day better. In FACT!:
Tips For Shoppers
1. If the grocery store clerk is polite to you, be polite back, it wont kill you.
2. If the stock boy isnt immediately polite, give him or her the chance, be polite first, it wont kill you.
3. LOOK FIRST, then ask me if I know where the sugar is.
4. If I say there isnt something your looking for in the back, dont ask me if I am sure. It is dumb of me to say that we dont have something if we do, then I look like an idiot.
5. MOST IMPORTANT: I DONT EVER MAKE PRICE DECISIONS!!! So dont come up to me and tell me that I should be ashamed at how much our canned soup is.
6. Dont wave me over, dont beckon me, and never refer to me as boy. This will make me mad and then we get to number 2.
7. Be polite it wont kill you.
8. Lastly. If there are long line ups at the tills, dont get mad at us, it is in our best interest to work fast, we dont like seeing you stand there for so long either.
Personal Life
Going good. Shauna is my life and my most important love. I love her with all of my heart. Everything else is none of your business.
New Work
Well, so far, there is nothing new on the horizon. I havent really been looking every day, which I should be doing, but oh well.
More to come I think.
December 11, 2003
Roar! Fear Me!
Congratulations! You're Merry!
Which Lord of the Rings character and personality problem are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Stage Vocabulary
Stage vocabulary is a language that has developed over the years between director and actor to communicate quickly to each other in rehearsals. It is a kind of a shorthand in which all directions are to the actor's left or right.
Upstage means towards the rear of the acting area. Downstage means toward the front. Stage right and stage left refer to the performers right or left when he or she is facing the audience. The stage floor is frequently spoken of as though divided into sections: up right, up center, up left, down right, down center and down left.
Body positions are also designated for work largely on the proscenium stage. The director may ask the actor to turn out, meaning to turn more towards the audience. Two actors are sometimes told to share a scene, or play in a profile position that they are equally visible to the audience. An actor may be told to dress the stage, meaning to move to balance the stage picture. Experienced actors take directions with ease and frequently make such moves almost automatically.
In the audience we are almost never aware that the actor is taking a rehearsed position. But the actor's movements, along with lighting and sound, often control what we see and hear on stage.
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An audience should NEVER think "oh, he moved over to share the scene wonderfully", or "that light makes things look great". The minute that an audience member is thinking about actors moving or how the lights work, or dont work, then things are not perfect. The lights should be done in such a way so that an audience member goes "there were lights there, huh never noticed".
Some directors have their own language for actors (some of which shouldnt appear in print) and can have their own way of getting an actor to share a scene or dress the stage.
December 9, 2003
Not So Far From Home
Off to see the Diary of Ann Frank tonight.
Sitting here at my dad's office with a few moments to kill before KFC arrives for us to wolf down, so I thought I would write a little something.
Little Something.
Ha! I Slay me I am so funny.
But seriously folks.
Winter is now fully here and Christmas is rapidly approaching. Its going to be a tight christmas as I am still not making a lot of money nor do we have much saved up. However, my grandparents, the generous and amazing people they are, have gifted to my brother and I, a large sum of $$$ to be given to us on a monthly basis over the next ten years. It couldnt have come at a better time and be more appreciated.
The weather lately has gotten a little more harsh and picked up a little more bite. A sure sign that Old Man Winter is rolling into town and getting ready to take up residence. I like winter, dont get me wrong, but only to a degree. I hate bitterly windy cold days. If its going to be cold, I like it to be cold, but calm and sunny. Crisp if you will. I hate warm winter days, slush getting all over the place and getting you wet for sure. I like heavy snowfall days, where the snow comes down thick and heavy and everything gets quiet.
I am looking forward to going to MTC tonight, seeing John Bent Jr., saying hello and then watching the show. It is supposed to be very very good. I hope that the reviewer wasnt wrong. I think that I will post my own review when I get home later.
Well, food should be here any minute now, so I will say g,night eh?
December 7, 2003
Excellent!
Three Sisters
Anton Chekhov's most critically acclaimed work during his lifetime was first produced at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1901 with Olga Knipper as Masha, Stanislavski as Colonel Vershinin, and Vsevelod Meyerhold as Baron Tusenbach.
In a garrison town in rural Russia, the cultured Prozorov sisters think longinly of the exicitement of Moscow, which they left eleven years earlier. Olga, the oldest, is constantly exhausted by her work as a schoolteacher; Masha, married at eighteen to a man considered an intellectual giant, bitterly realizes that he is merely a pedant; Irina, the youngest, dreams of a romantic future and rejects the sincere love of Lieutenant Tusenbach and the advances of lieutenant colonel vershinin. Like Masha, he is unhappily married. They are immediately attracted to one another.
The Prozorovs and their friends recognize the frustration of thier lives, but hope in some vague future keeps their spirits high. For the sisters is a dream of returning someday to Moscow. The atmosphere changes when Andrey marries Natasha. The sisters immediate prospects for returning to Moscow are dashed. Irina tries to find relief in her job at the telegraph office. Natasha takes control of the household, and as time goes on the sisters are moved about in the house to make room for her two children. Andrey takes refuge in gambling and mortages the house that he and his sisters own jointly.
News that the garrison is to be transferred brings depressing prospects for the future. Irina decides to marry Tusenbach, an unattractive but gental man, who resigns his army commission in the hope of finding more meaningful work. As Masha and Vershinin, who have become open lovers, bid each other goodbye, and the regiment prepares to leave, word comes that Tusenbach has been killed by Solyony in a duel over Irina. The sisters cling to one another for consolation. As the military band strikes up, the gaiety of the music inspires them to hope that there is new life in store for them in another "millennium."
December 6, 2003
People Are Stupid
We as a gene pool, a group of DNA strung together, can at times be incredibly stupid.
Stupid. Stupid and more Stupid.
Go here and read about people being stupid for proof.
December 5, 2003
Bert Lahr 1895 - 1967
Bert Lahr
Beginning his stage career as a stand-up vaudville comic, Lahr moved on to Broadway musical comedy, became identified with the role of Cowardly Lion in the film The Wizard of Oz (1939) and closed his career as a distinquished actor best remembered for his permances as Gogo (Estragon) in Beckett's existential masterpiece.
Lahr created the role in the American premiere of Beckett's play in Miami, 1956, directed by Alan Schneider, continuing on Broadway later that same year (directed by Herber Bergof) with E.G. Marshall as Vladmir, Kurt Kaznar as Pozzo, and Alvin Epstein as Lucky. These productions are described in Notes on a Cowardly Lion (1969), a perceptive biography by his son John Lahr, a notable theatre critic.
As Estragon, Lahr was unfailing in his instincts to be clear, simple, and to the point. Audiences waited in vain for hints of his "cowardly lion", but Lahr refused to retread familar ground. His warmth and common humanity extended across the footlights and caught up audiences in a shared experience. British critic Kenneth Tynan put it this way: "Mr. Lahr's beleaguered simpleton (Estragon), a draughts-player lost in a universe of chess, is one of the noblest performances I have ever seen."
*****
Sometimes actors can be better known or show their talents better on the stage then on the silver screen. I have seen a small handful of silver screen actors on the stage and they have always shone very brightly. Dustin Hoffman was BRILLIANT in Death of a Salesman and Keanu, when he came here to do Hamlet was decent as well (ok, so he couldnt do the big stuff, but he is a tremendous physical actor).
My Girl
December 4, 2003
Desire
A Streetcar Named Desire
Tennessee Williams
A Poster From The Movie With Marlon Brando
Tennesee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire was first produced at the Barrymore Theatre, New York, in 1947. Her family's Mississippi estates sold, Blanche DuBois arrives at the New Orleans tenement home of Stella and Stanley Kowalski, her pregnant sister and her brother-in-law. Blanche's faded gentility clashes with Stanley's brutish masculinity. As she seeks protection from the world, she competes with Stanley for Stella's affections but finds herself no match for his sexual hold over her sister. She tries to charm Mitch, Stanley's poker playing friend, into marrying her. However, Stanely destroy's Blanche's hopes for marriage by telling Mitch about her past drunkeness and promiscuity. As Stella reproaches Stanley for his cruelty, her labor pains begin and Stanley rushes her to the hospital.
Blanche is visited by a drunken Mitch, who accuses her of lying to him and makes and effort to seduce her. Stanely returns to find Blanche dressed for a party, fantasizing about an invitation to go on a cruise with a wealthy friend. Angered by her pretensions, Stanley starts a fight with her that ends in rape. In a final scene some weeks later, Blanche, her tenuous hold on reality shattered, is taken to a mental hospital.
The tragedy of Streetcar reveals human duplicity and desperation in Williams' modern South, where fragile people are overcome by violence and vulgarity.
**********
The Manitoba Theatre Centre did Streetcar a few years ago and it was tremendous. The sets and design were amazing and the acting was the best I have seen in a long time. And I even knew a few people in the show.
December 3, 2003
Constantin Stanislavski 1863 - 1938
Constantin Stanislavski was producer - director - actor and co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre. As a director, Stanislavski aimed for ensemble acting and absence of stars; he established such directional methods as intensive study of the play before rehearsals began, the actor's careful attention to detail, and re-creation of the play's milieu after visting locales or doing extensive research.
The Moscow Art Theatre's reputation was made with Anton Chekhov's plays depicting the monotonous and frustrating life of the rural landowning class.
Stanislavski is remembered most for his efforts to perfect a truthful method of acting. His published writings in English - My Life in Art (1924), An Actor Prepares (1936), Building A Character (1949), and Creating A Role (1961) - provide a record of the "Stanislavski System" as it evolved.
*********
To many actors he is to modern theatre as what Henry Ford is to modern transportation.
December 2, 2003
General
Dentist: Went way better then I thought it might. My dentist (who I have been seeing for more then 18 years now) cares a lot and has a great touch. Today I had two fillings done and I almost fell asleep during the procedure.
My feet: For the last three weeks (at least) I have been desperately trying to get rid of some ingrown toe nails. They hurt a lot and it makes doing stuff hard. I cant really walk all that much and I have to soak them and put cream on them and bandage them up twice a day. You all didnt need to know that.
Work: Has been going ok. I mean it isnt paying me the big bucks but its fun and the people I am working with are nice and friendly and thats something I missed at my last job.
Cant thing of anything
I wanted to do some longer posts. But I can think of anything to write.
So.
I am off to the dentist. Which sucks.
Maybe I will feel like writing then.