Sometimes, in the morning, I get up when real people get up (not 10.30), and go out, and do things that real people do, like walk around or drink coffee in a cafe. And it is lovely. Today, the nip in the air is nice, the sun is nice, the flowering trees are beyond nice, the dogs, the people, the company, the everything.
Last night I went to BAM to see Endgame by Samuel Beckett. So I've decided that I'm really, really not very into Beckett, at all at all at all. At least not right now. Honestly, I don't know what the play was "about," what I was theoretically supposed to be getting out of it, and I'm not that interested in trying to figure it out or dedicate much thought to it. I was mostly there to see the four actors (Elaine Stritch, Alvin Epstein, John Turturro, Max Casella) because I like each of them individually (ok, except maybe A.E.) and wanted to see them together. Weirdest cast ever.
ANYWAY, my point is that the evening would have been sort of unremarkable (or perhaps even remembered negativgely, since the fucking guy next to me couldn't stop sniffling (aka ruining my life) AND the bar of the balcony was running right through my field of vision) EXCEPT for the fact that something terrible and terrific happened. John Turturro, Hamm, spends the whole play in this big heavy wood chair that has wheels on the legs, and early-ish in the play he asks Clov, Max Casella, to wheel him around the room so he can feel the walls. Clov doesn't bring him close enough, so Hamm yells at him and Clov almost rams the chair into the wall, to get back at him. when this happened, the bag leg's wheel fell off. M.C. picked it up really calmly, and eventually tried to fix it while still delivering his lines. He seemed nervous and they adapted some business involving moving the chair, and I thought the result was actualy hilarious and probably better than what it was supposed to be. But what do I know. Anyway, this goes on for some time, MC fiddles with the wheel again, and it seems like everything is copacetic.
20 minutes later, Hamm has this massive speech where he's telling his dad an installment of this crazy story he's making up. His dad is in a garbage can, further downstage. J.T. flings his arms open and the chair, as if in slow motion, hurtles backward. The audience gasped louder than I've ever heard any gasp, JT smacked his head on the stage, and MC came running on. Staying mostly in the moment and in character, he assessed the situation and JT starts yelling "I don't need my chair to finish my story! I need to finish my story!" and starts wriggling out of the chair and crawling over to the garbage can. MC starts trying to get the chair righted and then this stagehand runs on and wheels the chair off. For the rest of the story, JT sat next to the can, and from the back of the stage, you could hear hammering and drilling and stuff. Which is hilarious, because Endgame is sort of supposed to exist in a VACUUM. Or something.
The conclusion of this hilarity was at the end of the story, someone coming over the God mic, saying "Ladies and gentlemen, we'll hold to bring the chair back on, it is fixed" and a stagehand whisking it on. They could have not said anything, and I wish they hadn't. I am also fully confident that they would have figured something out if they HADN'T taken the chair away and I kind of wish thay they hadn't.
It was wonderful. Later lines in the play had new, funny significance all of a sudden, and I don't even (or only) mean cheaply funny. It was wonderful to watch them adapt and scramble and compensate for the accident. And it made me think about all the stupid things that have gone wrong in shows I've been in.
Work has been silly lately-- two nights of drinking on the job raised morale a little bit. Had to watch one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life...but it was a fundraiser to, you know, stop GENOCIDE, so I look like a bastard if I complain about the shittiness of the thing. I don't care. It was super shitty. My friend Matt at work texted me from the sound board "I'm glad you're here to see this-- it's the real cultural atrocity."
Today, I will hopefully coerce Nitz to see the cherry blossoms with me, then we will hopefully go see Jhumpa Lahiri read at the Strand, then I will come home and hopefully binge to excess on Twin Peaks. These are my hopes.
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2 comments:
That is so funny/interesting about the chair! Even though that stuff makes me cringe it's really fascinating when it happens. I just don't like when it happens to ME. Remember when that glass broke during those 10-minute plays in the year above us? And someone like Ava was barefoot, and everyone was freaking out. I remember Ben and Matt whats-his-name from Spon Com getting in a big theoretical discussion at that same event about whether you should hand someone on stage a pencil if they ask the audience for one, in character. I also remember rolling my eyes at that.
Also, I'm commenting as Bustamfop, fervently. Tear...
Also that was Liam
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