March 11, 2010
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Corey Haim 1971-2010The Daily News
1 So…Corey Haim walks into a bar…
2 Way too young, way too young. It’s almost impossible to say how that moved me. Tough thing to watch, indeed.
3 Yeesh.
4 As always, it puts everything into perspective.
5 Moving on, Part the First: Last night I sat down and read the first couple of scenes from Julius Caesar. It’s funny, because I have come to depend on the internet for good knowledge, of which there is much if one knows how to navigate.
6 Having only one source of information at my fingertips challenged me into reading JC on the spot. Oh, I have Shakespeare books out in the garage, but they are high up in a heavy box, which is a back injury looking for a place to happen. PLUS I would also have to look at the broken springs on my garage door. Themz varmints looks angruh.
7 I really wanted to read up on the Feast of the Lupercal, in which young men “back in the day” would run through the streets of Rome nekkid, and would strike all the unfertile wimminz in the head using a sandal. As I recall, the wimminz who got stricken in the head would become fertile.
8 The play begins on the Ides of February, the underrated “ides”,since Caesar gets shanked on the Ides of March, the “ides” being the middle of the month. The Ides of March are much more famous than the Ides of February.
9 I love the stage directions in Act 1, Scene 2, when we first meet all the characters. I imagine a cast sitting at a read-around at the first gathering of the company, reading the following:
[A flourish of trumpets announces the approach of Caesar. A large crowd of Commoners has assembled; a Soothsayer is among them. Enter Caesar, his wife Calpurnia, Portia, Decius, Brutus, Cassius, Casca, and Anthony, who is stripped for running in the games.]
10 The fun thing is thinking of the guy who gets to play Anthony.
Amazingly there are side-notes for just about every other line, but nothing on those stage directions.
11 Yet ANY company doing the show would instantly all turn to the poor guy cast as Anthony, and laugh, unless they are a haughty group. I loved the way they try to keep it ambiguous. “Stripped for running in the games…”
12 That stage direction might get past English 2 students, but it
wouldn’t get past a sharp cast, and it certainly wouldn’t get past the guy playing Anthony!
13 What’s funny is I KNOW directors who are purists when it comes to
scripts. Now I was never a prude, nor even remotely prudish in my comments, but I would never put in scenes that might get backlash from audience members.
14 The REASON I worked pretty clean with scripts was simply I didn’t
have time to create any situation that would require taking time to go down to the office and fight for the First Amendment. For one thing, I knew that in general, I would more likely than not win that one, believe it or don’t.
15 Every show was always a race to the finish, with enough real-life
roadblocks: outside groups who wanted to use the Theatre, Principals who needed to have meetings, clubs that would get into the Theatre and not respect the work being done, or other clubs and organizations that would use the Theatre as a playground. None had any training in the actual mounting and organization of staging a production except students of drama.
16 I fought a million battles over the years, and won nearly every one of
them. So nope, I would instantly have put Anthony on the spot for a second, insisting he would have to go au naturel, but really, I would have brought in some sort of cover. I never saw a reason to have some dunderheaded administrator pull me into the office and argue over those sorts of issues. I would either chose shows that kept away from that sort of thing, or just re-write slight directions so that the above stage directions might read: […and Anthony, who is wearing an Alaskan otter coat and large mittens…]
17 ; ) ß——sideways cool winky guy.
18 Uh…dude.
19 Do you KNOW who you’re dealing with here?
20 LOLz.
21 Lots o’ Lovin’.
22 Moving on, Part the Second: Some band is on Jimmy Fallon right now singing a song that sounds like the guy is singing, “It’s terrible I’m walking in Spandex…” The band kicks ass, but I’m not sure about the lyrics.
23 I didn’t get the name of the band, so I grabbed my remote and tried running it back.
24 The DVR is out. Forgot.
25 So I decided to Google it.
26 Access denied. My internet is down.
27 Decided to go to the store for some well-deserved chocolate.
28 Can’t get the garage door to open…
29 Decided to finish up writing the DN, and then returning to Julius Caesar. I’m thinking of having the conspirators use squirt guns to kill Caesar, so we don’t get into any First Amendment concerns with parents who feel it’s too violent.
30 Whatdya think?
31 These are, after all, all honourable men.
32 Anyway, that’s the best I could do working on a shoestring last night.
33 I think I’m going to take the high road outta here.
34 I hope y’all have an excellent Thursday.
35 As always, fly low.
36 Peace.
~H~
