Play: The Method Gun

Saw a really good play today – The Method Gun at the Paramount (it was the last performance there, but it should be performed elsewhere).  My interpretation below (don’t read if you are planning on seeing as it may spoil).  If you have a chance, this is definitely a play worth seeing.  Funny, uncomfortable, afterwards I felt like I was exposed to a rich, stimulating saga, a story not my own, but one I found very interesting.

London, Red, Ticket to Israel Booked

Saw Cyn today in London – great to see her.  She took me to see Red, a play about Mark Rothko and his assistant.  Liked it, although it seemed a bit dry and overly simply at times…  almost condescendingly so…  but that’s irrelevant – I was finally able to formulate the thought dynamic that I often have: I want to see things a certain way.  When I discover that there is a deviation from what I want/expcet to see, I freeze up, judge, spaz, become paranoid, etc. depending on context.  I wonder whether this way of thinking falls into being a male, a human, or if it’s juts psychological baggage.

Anyway, after some trouble with my CC card, booked a ticket to Israel – leaving on the afternoon of the 21st to arrive in the evening.

Now staying at The Generator Hostel…  off to sleep.

Man or McEnroe

Checked out “Man or McEnroe”.  So-so show, the idea is good, but undeveloped.  Just as it gets interesting, the play is over.  Initially I thought it was just a bad play.  But, towards the end, it turned into a self-reflection on part of the artists, but, just as it was in All Wear Bowlers, the self-reflection doesn’t bring resolution – it’s as if the writers didn’t really know what they wanted to say and got lost in their own thoughts…  There is no feeling of completeness afterwards.  But I have to say, the presentation is excellent.  Both actors make you believe that, in fact, McEnroe is a petty, unpleasant, sorry man that they judge harshly in an almost comic fashion…  which is what initially made me angry – I mean WTF?  Who are they to judge a public figure so harshly?  And it’s not until the end of the play that I realize that the judgment is, in itself a facade…

This made me remember the idea for a play/movie that I had a while ago and that I would really like to implement – the main point is that all assumptions can be wrong.  The performance would consist of several vignettes that would each add on a piece of information that would invalidate the model that the user build based on the previous segment.  For example:

Scene 1:

Lights on

A girl (B) is standing stage right.  A guy (A) enters stage left.

B: (pleads) No…  no…

A (walks towards her throwing the chairs to the side)

B: Please…  please…  don’t do this…

A: walks up to her, slaps her across the face, walks out

B: MONSTER! (yells sobbing)

Lights off

Scene 2:

A guy (A) is sitting at the desk stage left and is rummaging through papers.

A: No…  please…  this can’t be.  I trusted her.  How could she do this.  That is almost all my money. How am I going to take care of my family?  No, this is not right. (stands up, starts walking stage right)

Lights off

And so on.  Although I think something other than a domestic-money conflict should be used – something not quite as cliche or as trivial.

Basically, amplify the idea that was pretty well presented in Hilary & Jackie’>Hilary & Jackie’>Hillary and Jackie.