Scribbledocious: A Blog

Scribbledocious V.2 by alicia grega

~~(http://kittyburbank.spaces.live.com)~~

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March 04

Tripod: the photography of Mike Burnside, Alicia Grega & Imelda Baggett

9:38 AM GMT | Read comments(0)

March 01

Hamlet review response letter

I received this letter over the weekend from the director of Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble's new production of Hamlet in response to my review.

I think it's just marvelous and I wanted to share it with all two of you readers out there. ;)

Assuming you haven't read the review, do take a minute to read it first, otherwise this letter will lack meaningful context. (http://www.ecweekend.com/arts/story.asp?id=50515).

There's an incredible amount of pressure knowing you are one of the only reviews, if not the only review a company is going to receive of its production. I don't take this responsibility lightly. I have, in fact, spent countless hours developing a general philosophy I can fall back on in times of strain. As a theatrical practioner myself, my overall goal is to encourage people to experience theatre. However, if they see a show they don't like, the danger is they will hesitate to see future productions, afraid of that bad aftertaste. So, my job is to be a sort of matchmaker - help people find the shows they are most likely to enjoy and steer them away from the shows that they won't. Without assuming my taste is the same as theirs, I try to describe what I have seen as specifically as possible without coy judgements so that they can formulate their own opinions. When I suspect greater explainations might be in order -- context about when the play was written or the philosopgy behind it, etc. -- I try to include this detail to help people feel more familiar and comfortable with material that might otherwise make them nervous.

As I also feel most serious artists genuinely want to grow, I try to give them an honest response to their work that they might use (or not, if it is of no use to them) in their continued development.

It's nice to receive compliments, particularly when they are honestly felt, but I prefer challenging suggestions. Those that get my mind racing and artistic juices flowing. I hope those juice might always be instigated, no matter how much experience I gain; no matter how much of an expert I become. Is there joy in it once there is no longer room to grow?

-ag

Dear Alicia -

First, thank you for seeing, and reviewing HAMLET. In this work of making theatre, we always wonder about the impact of our work, and not just the immediate impact. Do the images and reverberations we create in this ephemeral dance of the stage resonate over time? Or are we just creating sand pictures intended to blow away with the first wind? Perhaps, our spiritual journey as makers of theatre lies in the creation of the ephemeral. "We are such things as dreams are made on."

So I was deeply gratified when you wrote, 20 years later, of the impact that KING LEAR at BTE had on you. I directed that production, and it warmed my heart to hear all these years later how you held it in your heart.

I also directed this HAMLET, and while I wish that it had better impressed you, I have no desire to question your responses. You see what you see; you write well and your responses are as valid as any.

HAMLET is a very different play from LEAR -- and for the most part it follows the rules of revenge tragedy, albeit with a ghostly twist. It was in this play that Shakespeare begins the path that will lead him to LEAR -- for on another plane he uses the stolid structure of the story to support an inquiry -- a musing -- into every corner of mortality. I think that's the reason -- the pondering of the universal questions of life, death, and the purpose and workings of it all -- that this play has held so firmly to the world's imagination for 410 years.

I enjoyed your "Ikea" comment -- indeed, as the designers and I worked on this we looked at vast amounts of research on contemporary Scandanavian woodwork, and while we specifically avoided the Ikea catalog, I suppose the connection was unavoidable. It was, if fact, the intent. We also explored contemporary Scandanavian high fashion, and used that too. We wanted exotic but familiar, and I'm pleased with the choices as a frame for this HAMLET.

The theatricality of the production, the exposition of the backstage, the overtness of the scene changes (indeed the dreariness of the workings) -- all of that is intentional in this production that, encouraged by this most theatre-aware of Shakespeare's texts, explores theatricality itself. But I don't want to get defensive -- only to say that there is clear intent there.

Nothing is ever perfect, Lord knows, and nothing is ever the same, but I am as pleased with this HAMLET as I was with LEAR. Thousands of highs school students are seeing this production, and, should I be fortunate to live so long, perhaps one of those students, twenty years from now, will remember it as fondly as you do LEAR. It is all we can wish for.

I hope you will see HAMLET again. Please understand, this is a thank you note -- a complex one, sure -- but a sincere appreciation for your generosity in remembering LEAR, for coming to review HAMLET, and for writing so clearly about it.

-- Gerard Stropnicky

6:59 AM GMT | Read comments(0)

February 24

Talking about YouTube - Image of Jesus in Sauce Bucket Scranton PA

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YouTube - Image of Jesus in Sauce Bucket Scranton PA

11:59 AM GMT | Read comments(0)

February 08

Talking about How Being Busy Means Not Being Creative

I've been morning my lack of downtime lately.

2009 proved to be an incredibly productive year as far as my resume is concerned. Yet, creatively, I've felt more hollow than I'd like.

It's not that I've felt writers block or anything of that sort, its just I've been so busy doing one piece of work or another that not only is my day dreaming time lacking, but also my creative writing time. That I would use to make poems or work on a play.

This blog post I stumbled upon at productiveflourishing.com today is yet another in a series of reminders that a little slacking can be a good thing.

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How Being Busy Means Not Being Creative
During your life, you’ll have had ideas come to you at the most unexpected times, often when your mind isn’t on anything in particular. Whatever does it for you – country walks, long baths, meditation, exploration, daydreaming – there’s a fair chance that, when you’re busy, those gaps of time get crushed out of your life.

I'm thrilled (and nervous) to be producing the Hot Toddy Cabaret this month, but at the same time, there's a part of me desperate to get back into a world of my own making. The NeoVaudeville presentation was a fantastic stretch an autodidactic growth opportunity. Insomniac Salad in September was a blast, but ... I need to slip into that dangerously lost world of my own interrupted imagination and make time to record the results.

Spring marks the time when I will return to myself.
-ag

9:00 AM GMT | Read comments(0)

January 28

Talking about blog « amanda palmer

I was wondering how long it would take our dear AFP to respond to the last couple of weeks in a blog as opposed to the uncollected twitters she didn't hold back.

I was a little annoyed with how far overboard she went in explaining she doesn't watch TV or Movies. She knows who Roberty Downey Jr. and Quentin Tarantino are just not what's going on now. And good for her. Surely she's not trying to tell us how she's better than us because she only reads books. We know she spends a great deal of time reading about and looking at herself. But "fame whore" seems to bother her just a little.

I don't mean to be annoyed. I've gone without shaving. Until I needed to get a real job -- one that supports my kids.

I was voted "most intriguing" in high school - this translates as class freak. Some kids thought I was a snob, because I didn't talk to them. It didn't occur to them that I might be shy. I took art classes, did theatre and dressed "creatively." They assumed I must be outgoing and able to express myself socially. Guess again. After all these years, I'm still a little too shy for my own good.

Anyway, this is the part of Amanda's blog that really spoke to me.

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blog « amanda palmer
once you step outside the mainstream, whether you’re doing something deliberately saucy (like wearing a naked-dress) or something “normal” - but outside the beauty standard (like not shaving) - you’re going to be accused by the peanut gallery of the same thing: FAME WHORING.once again, it’s A LOT like high school. there was such a strict code of sticking to the party line, and one step outside said line could cost you your social life.most important: if you stepped outside the party line, you would be accused not only of being a weirdo, but far worse: of being weirdo DELIBERATELY to get attention.and to a certain extent, its true. you KNOW that by dressing expressively, you’re asking for grief. when you choose to do it all the same, you’re asking for a life of paradox, grey area and misunderstanding. so many of my fans know and understand this.

The sexism no one regards as sexism that is so painfully repressive. It would be nice to make a choice. It would be nice for such things not to matter. But we are a shallow people. Our fear consumes our kindess, our common sense. We make a choice to live in the world with other people or to decide their way of doing things just doesn't work for us. Then they see us judging them. Feeling sorry for them because they aren't so enlightened yet.

It is a conversation that runs in circles, finally consuming it's own tail.

I've felt more than once that truely alternative people didn't find me hard-core enough. Sorry. I guess I just pick different envelopes to push. I believe in transformation. I believe in starting fresh every day. I believe in tasting, in experimentation. I like listening. I like being able to change my mind. Who I am today is not who I will be tomorrow. I don't want a trademark burned into your memory.

Sometimes I wish compassion worked more like temperature. Hot and cold coming together, gradually bringing each other to consensus.

-ag

1:21 PM GMT | Read comments(0)

Subverse Aphrodesia

in zealous pursuit of emerging aesthetic