Guardian on SLP 365

Guardian on SLP 365 entire article is at
Most of the article is stuff that's already been brought up, but the last few
paragraphs.....
QUOTE:
Metzgar and Parks have made the work as accessible as possible. The performance rights cost just $1 a play and all shows must be free to
the public, with most of the cost of mounting a production falling to the performers. The two appear to have tapped into a great need in US theatre: participants seem to value the collaborative aspect above anything else. "I've been working in theatre in San Francisco for 16 years and I'm discovering companies I hadn't heard of," says Lisa Steindler of Z Space.

But in spite of the group-hug dynamic, doubts about the artistic coherence of the whole project have crept in. With low or non- existent production budgets and truncated rehearsal times, there's no guarantee that every production will be as good as the next, or that it will be what Parks intended. "I'm still scared the plays will be badly directed," says Steindler.

Then there's the issue of how audiences will perceive the playwright's work. Parks is known as much for her postmodern approach to language (one play called 9-11 features two characters on stilts saying the German word "nein" 11 times), as she is for her caustic commentary on race, history and myth. As such, while she is often
extremely funny, Parks' work is hardly easy viewing - and the 365 plays, with their references to Chekhov, politics and the dramatist's previous work, are no exception.

Still, no matter how haphazardly the plays are staged and how baffled they leave their audiences, Parks' imprimatur gets them serious attention. "I would be a lot more suspicious of the project if a less gifted and important playwright were involved," says Alisa Solomon, arts journalism professor at Columbia University and former theatre critic for the Village Voice. Plus, there's something rather moving -
sacred even - about Parks' year-long play-writing quest. "I would sit down at my desk," she says, "raise my arms in the air, wiggle my fingers in a gesture I like to call 'tickling the balls of God', and ask myself, 'What is the play today?' And out something would come."

Rustling up a drama every 24 hours wasn't always easy. Parks frequently found herself writing in hotel rooms at 2am, and even penned one play in the security line at Heathrow. At times, the ideas just didn't flow. You can tell the playwright was having a bad day when you come across titles such as Going Through the Motions, Empty, and, most emphatically, This Is Shit. But she kept going. "There were days when I just wasn't feeling it. I'd question my motives, but I'd still do it anyway," she says. "Writing is a spiritual practice. It's only by sticking with it that you get to the good stuff."

SLP 365Days with the USA vs Home Truths

On Nov 14, 2006, at 11:56 AM, F. A. asked re: my comments on SLP 365

A distraction from what?
So it's an unconventional way to do a play (or 365 of them). Does
that mean it's a"stunt?" I really believe theatres are involved because they think it's a cool project.

A distraction from our primary mission as a lab for R & D in human consciousness.

Sorry: for me "cool project" and "stunt" seem synonymous. I have seen and enjoyed local productions of some of Parks' plays, and read others. When she is in residence at MIT next year, I hope there will be public presentations that prompt dialogue with the community. But the 365 Project just doesn't seem urgent to me: Why this? Why here? Why now? I want "my" theatre to be original and intensely local-- a face to
face examination of our mutual lives. For Boston to matter in theatre, there must be Boston/Massachusetts matter, and some distinctive Boston/Massachusetts styles. When Red states use Massachusetts or Boston as labels for all that is wrong with America
-- liberalism, elitism, permissiveness, etc... they have an image of us. So do movies like The Departed, set among Southie mobsters, or a TV series like Boston Legal, which draws on the idea of Massachusetts as a place hospitable to intellectual argument and casual sex and hostile to corporations and hypocrisy. We should be holding up the mirror to ourselves, discovering for ourselves what is really here to
celebrate or satirize. What we express with local content within metaphorical structures then becomes "universal" because it serves for comparison. Set it next to "Chicago" theatre and "Irish" and "Jewish" and "Gay" theatre and we're all better able to figure out who we are and how we got that way.
What's peculiar to Boston? Well, our "Barney Frank" is a boogyman conservatives use to scare their constituents into giving money and turning out to vote-- to me Barney, my representative in Congress, is the democratic ideal: a person that I am so confident is devoted to the Common Good that when I discover that I disagree with him on an issue, I assume that I'd better reconsider. What's the local Barney Factor, that makes his public service both possible and fraught? How is it that Massachusetts, proportionally very Catholic, was the first state to legalize gay marriage and continues by a narrow margin to support it? When I moved to Boston in the late 60's, straight out of college, Massachusetts was represented by the first-- and for a long time the only-- African-American senator since Reconstruction: a
Republican. A few years later the bussing crisis revealed unplumbed depths of racist rage and Boston became a city notorious for bigotry. Last week Massachusetts, with a population only 10% black, elected an African-American Governor by a landslide. Where are the plays that chronicle this extraordinary and iconic journey? I have
no doubt that there are playwrights here who have begun work on some--- but where is the local theatre to develop and produce them? 150,000 demonstrators-- out of a population of 500,000-- converged on Boston Common to protest the Iraq war before it began. Why were we, as a community, uniquely right about what would happen if the US
invaded Iraq? Hare's "Stuff Happens" is running here now: sold out and about to be extended. Too bad we didn't produce a home-grown version in 2003, and send it out around the country-- certainly some of us were writing them. What's peculiar about Massachusetts? We have low church membership, yet the lowest divorce rate, and we're
less fat than every one but Oregonians: what is that all about? Like politics, theatre is local. The only way we can address the universal dramatically is by testing the particulars of experience through the "imitation of an action", and judge the consequences in the context of a community. Over time, when people have long term collegial relationships that amount to a continuing conversation, we will develop a common artistic vocabulary. We'll contest, correct, and encourage each other, and begin to be able to tell when we're telling the truth and when we're recycling fashionable crap. Then, maybe, Boston will have a "there" there, and have something to say to the country and the world.

Reaching Out to Conservatives

How many other people, I wonder, got this message from Michael Moore?

Begin forwarded message:

From: "maillist@michaelmoore.com"
Date: November 14, 2006 7:36:20 AM EST
To: g.l.horton@mindspring.com
Subject: A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives
Reply-To: maillist@michaelmoore.com

A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives

November 14th, 2006

To My Conservative Brothers and Sisters,

I know you are dismayed and disheartened at the results of last week's election. You're worried that the country is heading toward a very bad place you don't want it to go. Your 12-year Republican Revolution has ended with so much yet to do, so many promises left unfulfilled. You are in a funk, and I understand.

Well, cheer up, my friends! Do not despair. I have good news for you. I, and the millions of others who are now in charge with our Democratic Congress, have a pledge we would like to make to you, a list of promises that we offer you because we value you as our fellow Americans. You deserve to know what we plan to do with our newfound power -- and, to be specific, what we will do to you and for you.

Thus, here is our Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives:

Dear Conservatives and Republicans,

I, and my fellow signatories, hereby make these promises to you:

1. We will always respect you for your conservative beliefs. We will never, ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we encourage you to dissent and disagree with us.

2. We will let you marry whomever you want, even when some of us consider your behavior to be "different" or "immoral." Who you marry is none of our business. Love and be in love -- it's a wonderful gift.

3. We will not spend your grandchildren's money on our personal whims or to enrich our friends. It's your checkbook, too, and we will balance it for you.

4. When we soon bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq, we will bring your sons and daughters home, too. They deserve to live. We promise never to send your kids off to war based on either a mistake or a lie.

5. When we make America the last Western democracy to have universal health coverage, and all Americans are able to get help when they fall ill, we promise that you, too, will be able to see a doctor, regardless of your ability to pay. And when stem cell research delivers treatments and cures for diseases that affect you and your loved ones, we'll make sure those advances are available to you and your family, too.

6. Even though you have opposed environmental regulation, when we clean up our air and water, we, the Democratic majority, will let you, too, breathe the cleaner air and drink the purer water.

7. Should a mass murderer ever kill 3,000 people on our soil, we will devote every single resource to tracking him down and bringing him to justice. Immediately. We will protect you.

8. We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.

9. We will not take away your hunting guns. If you need an automatic weapon or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren't much of a hunter and you should, perhaps, pick up another sport. We will make our streets and schools as free as we can from these weapons and we will protect your children just as we would protect ours.

10. When we raise the minimum wage, we will pay you -- and your employees -- that new wage, too. When women are finally paid what men make, we will pay conservative women that wage, too.

11. We will respect your religious beliefs, even when you don't put those beliefs into practice. In fact, we will actively seek to promote your most radical religious beliefs ("Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the peacemakers," "Love your enemies," "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," and "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."). We will let people in other countries know that God doesn't just bless America, he blesses everyone. We will discourage religious intolerance and fanaticism -- starting with the fanaticism here at home, thus setting a good example for the rest of the world.

12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

I promise all of the above to you because this is your country, too. You are every bit as American as we are. We are all in this together. We sink or swim as one. Thank you for your years of service to this country and for giving us the opportunity to see if we can make things a bit better for our 300 million fellow Americans -- and for the rest of the world.

Signed,

Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
(Click here to sign the pledge)
www.michaelmoore.com

P.S. Please feel free to pass this on.

political theatre, enlightenment

Sunday I spent sitting being enlightened-- mostly in the dark. After a morning singing in the UU choir at a "Spirituality and Mental Health" service, I went to the Nora's matinee of A.R. Gurney's SCREENPLAY at Boston Playwrights Theatre. When Gurney taught at MIT he was active with the College Republicans, and on the advisory board of Playwrights Platform. I saw student and Concord Players productions of his early plays, and knew him slightly; he's Old Money from Buffalo, and chronicles the battered remnants of Noblesse Oblige. I've always liked his work-- a recurring thread has been uptight upright Republican males in love with or married to adventurous bleeding heart liberals. (Sylvia, Far East) Recently -- well, at our age, recently means the last decade or so-- Gurney has turned away from drawing figures of Republicans as Flawed vessels of classic Nobility to satirizing them as power-drunk hypocrites: not particularly successfully (The 4th Wall, Mrs. Farnsworth), but with intelligence and honesty. Now he's finally got it Right! SCREENPLAY is 70 minutes of liberating
laughter. Set in 2015, a few elections down in the Jeb Bush era, it parodies Casablanca and battles cynicism. One of the outrages in the SCREENPLAY plot is that the government has instituted Border Control in reverse, on the model of dictatorships elsewhere. Dissidents not shipped off to a gulag are on a vastly expanded "no fly" list to prevent them from saying or publishing abroad the facts and opinions censored in the USA. I got home to scan the Sunday news roundup and discovered that just such a "security" provision has been tucked undebated into law, ready to be applied when the regime deems it convenient! Holy Toledo! The play was
written and produced in NYC before this outrage, when it would have served as a warning-- would that it was produced on network TV, and seen by millions!

Sunday night I saw Zeitgeist's production of David Hare's STUFF HAPPENS at the BCA-- the Royal National's commission about the run- up to the Iraq war. You've probably heard of this play, but may wonder why it's worth seeing. "We"-- effete educated
Northeasterners-- know all this "stuff"-- unlike most of America, we were paying attention. But STUFF HAPPENS isn't journalism: its model is a Shakespeare history play, or a Greek tragedy. Ironic as it is, it isn't satire. It is the imitation of an action, an arc from decisions to consequence. My friend Rosanna Alfaro brought me the script from London, and I'd read it more than once-- no surprises. Still, I was left shaken and weeping. I'm grateful to David Miller for producing it, and a fine cast for making it work.

Artists and Politics

I know 3 artists-- 2 playwrights and a painter-- who have taken this entire year off to work against corruption and for fair and verified voting. A year sacrificing "that one talent which is death to hide"!... I'm in awe of that commitment.

The mid-term Election this time seems to me a Last Chance to turn around the hell-in-a-handbasket course this Administration is embarked upon. I'm heading to the phone bank to make some Get Out the Vote calls!

ICWP Celebrations to Be in Boston March 2007

I'm on the board of the International Centre for Women
Playwrights. In Nov 2003 I produced an area event called "Boston
Her-rah", showcasing about 30 local women playwrights. A committee
of about a dozen, of whom maybe half were/are loosely connected to
ICWP- (it's a cyber org: check out the web site. The Her-Rah event's
program and pictures are on it ) put together a week end of
performances and discussion. We invited women whose work we knew and
admired, and let them choose what 5-30 minute piece they wanted to
represent them. There were also panels and workshops, a reception,
and an open mic session --- Wheelock College and Central Square
Library donated the space. It was a great event! But did you even
hear about it? We had wonderful writers, directors, actors; but we
just weren't effective in generating publicity and attendance. People were happy it happened: but there wasn't enough of a response
by the community as a whole to encourage the women who worked on it
to be in a hurry to do more.
Now I'm supposed to produce another one: in conjunction with
International Women's Day, in March 2007. Ideally with one or more
guest playwrights from Abroad--- similar events will be taking place
in Edinburgh, Scotland and in, I think, Canada, Germany, and Romania,
and several others in the USA.
But I'm Not good at Production. I hate to make phone calls. I can't
organize schedules. I'm a natural pessimist, and spread worry and
gloom rather than cheer and optimism. Like the Little Red Hen, I'm about to go around clucking and squawking and ask:How about helping out? Or maybe taking over? I can work hard, and
heaven knows I am acquainted with 100s of talented people around
here (although I have trouble remembering their names and faces: if
it isn't part of a narrative, I forget...) Could I have some help to do this,
please? I know, I know, the boys should get a turn, too. But women
are starting from so far behind......"

What to Produce, and Why It Matters

For Boston to matter in theatre, there must be Boston/Massachusetts
matter, and some distinctive Boston/Massachusetts styles. When Red
states use Massachusetts or Boston as labels for all that is wrong
with America -- liberalism, elitism, permissiveness, etc... they have
an image of us. So do movies like The Departed, set among Southie
mobsters, or a TV series like Boston Legal, which draws on the idea
of Massachusetts as place hospitable to intellectual argument and
hostile to corporations and bigots. We should be holding up the
mirror to ourselves, discovering for ourselves what is really here to
celebrate or satirize. Our "Barney Frank" is a boogyman conservatives
use to scare their constituents into giving money and turning out to
vote-- to me Barney, my representative, is the ideal: a person that I
am so confident is devoted to the Common Good that when I discover
that I disagree with him on an issue, I assume that I'd better
reconsider. What's the local Barney Factor, that makes his public
service possible? My city (Newton) has the lowest crime rate in the
country: where does that come from? Why have we, uniquely, been
right about what would happen if the US invaded Iraq? And why is the
rest of the country so eager to reject sound advice if it comes from
Massachusetts? This latest Kerry joke flap is another instance of
Massachusettsophobia. We have low church membership, and the lowest
divorce rate, and we're less fat than every one but Oregonians: what
is that all about? Like politics, theatre is local. The only way we
can address the universal dramatically is by testing the particulars
of experience through the "imitation of an action", and judge the
consequences in the context of a community. Over time, when people
have long term collegial relationships that amount to a continuing
conversation, we will develop a common artistic vocabulary. We'll
contest, correct, and encourage each other, and begin to be able to
tell when we're telling the truth and when we're recycling
fashionable crap. Then, maybe, Boston will have a "there" there, and
be on the map.