Martha's Run At West End Theatre

Saturday February 4 I woke up in my own bed, nestled between my husband and my cat-- very happy to be with both. What to do with our free time together? The cat was sure: feed me! pet me! hold me on your lap! David and I decided to go out to Ruby Tuesday's for lunch, where I could stuff myself with my favorite salad bar and he could have a huge double burger--no bun, no fries. (We are still on the low carb diet which allows David to cope with his diabetes without medication. Four years, now. I haven't put back any of the weight I lost when we started it-- but I've only lost about 2 pounds a year since.) We did "energy" tai chi, then I felt that I should write a monologue or two if possible-- and it proved possible. Posted those new ones on my Stagepage. Joan Faber and Jeff Brewer picked me up for the trip North to Gloucester, and I mumbled my lines to myself in the back seat as we drove along. Weather was very bad, and getting worse. Pouring rain and bitter wind, fog along the shore. When we got to the theatre we discovered that the deluge had prompted a number of people to cancel their reservations for the performance. One who didn't cancel, however, was Mimi Huntington from the Nora Theatre in Cambridge -- the Nora is interested in Rosanna Alfaro's plays-- they are doing a second reading of her "Laughter Of The Gods" some time later this season-- and I was very pleased that Nora's artistic director had made the trip North to experience Rosanna's wonderful script for MARTHA. It seemed a rather "difficult" audience. Besides being small, people had chosen to avoid the front row, "keeping their distance" between themselves and Martha the Mouth. If they don't want to be charmed by Martha's Southern Belle routine, ok. They are the other half of the conversation: let it be confrontational instead of humorous, if that's the mood they're in. A little desperation isn't a bad thing.... A very different show from the previous ones, but in some ways closer to the bone. Rosanna wasn't displeased.
June drove me back to her Gloucester cottage, and we watched the DVD of CRASH that she's been sent as a SAG member. I'm not really a movie person, but this one certainly held my interest. But!! CRASH starts in a confusing way, with shots that will occur later in the film interspersed with the credits at the top. We couldn't remember afterwards whether the inciting incident -- cop in car shoots at cop in another car-- was shown in the film or if we only saw its immedidate aftermath. We intended to watch the beginning over again Sunday, but never got around to it. Must ask someone else who saw it........