The only thing worse than blogging...

...is NOT blogging and then wanting to blog and then fakely post-dating your entry that you wrote while you didn't have internet.

Like I'm about to do.

I wrote this rant on 11.20 and never posted it. Instead of writing something new, I will post it now.

I have had the extreme pleasure of seeing a lot of things live recently. Let me recap. In my haste to talk about the shenanigans of last weekend, I forgot a whole bunch.

Last Tuesday was the opening of Streamers at the Laura Pels Theatre. I guess I've done enough (sexual) favors for Jason to warrant an invite (that was a JOKE), so I dressed up and sat in a great seat, accompanied by Lee, Nitz and Tanni, surrounded by cool-looking people who probably were no more VIPs than we were but at least appeared to have some clout. I did recognize a few faces, including (I'm convinced, though this doesn't really make 'logical' sense) Aaron Staton, aka Ken Cosgrove on Mad Men, aka the husband of former BU student Connie Fletcher. There would have been no point in trying to talk to him, and it probably wasn't even him, but I was excited anyway and wouldn't stop staring. The lesson is—you can't take me anywhere. Once I put on lipstick, I think I have a free pass to act as uncouthly as I want. AND DON'T I?!

I liked the show, though it was a completely different play from the one I remembered reading three years ago in Jim Spruill's class. I guess that's to be expected. Jason has a moment where he crosses the back of the stage, whistling, and he accepts song requests in the form of dares. I put him up to the Mad Men theme song and was not disappointed.

Afterwards, there was a swell party at the Bryant Park Grill, where we all ate and drank a lot, I bonded INTENSELY with a member of the cast who was born in Schenectady (he made me meet his girlfriend so I could corroborate all stories, past and present, about Schenectady being tough), and ultimately resulted in Jason getting yelled at by a Scottish bartender. My people know a good-for-nothing when they SEE one!

Then, this past Monday, I found myself at the Roust Theatre Company's production of Macbeth. I shouldn't probably put the full name of their company, in case someone is googling, so—if you were in the show, please, stop reading now. I'm going to be mean. Michael, this excludes you.

This was, hands down, the most gratuitous, stupid, infuriating production of any Shakespeare play I've ever seen, and I include Complicite's Measure for Measure in that assessment. And I really hate Simon McBurney, so that means a lot. Back then, in the naïve days of my youth, I though cutting a girl's bra open and then making her deliver a five-minute monologue to the audience was bad. Oh, but I had much to learn. Here's a brief tally of the horrors I witnessed inside that small theatre:

3 slit throats

1 rape of a pregnant woman

1 mentally handicapped adult getting asphyxiated with a plastic bag

3 teeth ripped out with a hammer

1 overblown, WSS-wannabe knife fight

1 vagina getting stabbed

1 anus getting stabbed

1 dead king who comes back as a random soldier in a Castro costume

3 slutty witches

infinite sexual positions in the orgy scene

Oh wait, there's no orgy scene in Macbeth? Sure there is. You know, there's the sleepwalking scene, the dagger scene, the dinner scene, the orgy scene. No? Really, are you sure? I know what I saw.

I don't need to go on. I don't care if this makes me seem like some sort of traditionalist prude, but I DO NOT AND WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS KIND OF BULLSHIT. I was actually angry after I saw it, because SO MANY people had spent considerable time and considerably more money bringing this terror to life, and for what? I doubt anyone came away with any sort of familiarity or connection with the play. Maybe a "Wow, that smoke machine was working hard" or "Wasn't that awesome when the witches were all giving Malcolm a blowjob at the end?," but nothing else. No tongues were in cheeks. (They were plenty of other places, though.) No one was winking. I wouldn't even agree with that, but at least then I would have been confident that I wasn't watching something that had been spearheaded by an absolute lunatic. That's what I think the director was, for the record.

Oh Jesus.

HAPPILY, the stains of that evening were washed away the very next, by The Seagull on Broadway at the Walter Kerr. I was absolutely astounded by this show. I had never read the play, and my last experience with Chekhov ranged from forgettable to, um…forgettable-er? I got a $25 "student" (unethical unethical unethical) ticket an hour before the show, which is a fucking steal, and for the next three hours, was totally rapt. With the exception of intermission, where the cute gay guy sitting next to me talked to me about stories of Patti LuPone telling people to be quiet from the stage (which I loved), and when the cellphone of the lady behind me rang at, you know, the emotional climax of the play. Other than that, it was perfect perfect perfect. Forgive me for being in such a proselytizing mood—as much as I could go on and on about how bad Maccers was, I could talk for hours about all the things I loved about The Seagull. I won't. I'll just say that it runs through December 21^st, and if you have time, money, and are in appropriately manageable proximity to it, you should make it your business to go see it. DOOOO IT.

The Seagull was sandwiched between working on WTTAN for four hours in a coffee shop and going out for drinks at Jimmy's corner with my friends (apparently everyone hates that bar except for me, but I could care less), and assessing it now, that is a model that I use for every day. I wouldn't mind. Writing, show, friends. Add in a few hours of rehearsal somewhere and I'm good to go.

And last night Erin and I went to the Bowery Ballroom to see my one true love, Sondre Lerche. Oh my. I….can't even talk about the way he makes me feel. He sang us a bunch of new songs, including one about lost opportunities and second chances called "Like Lazenby," as in George Lazenby, an apparently-underrated Bond. CUTE. It was absolutely ridiculous—though there were a lot of guys there, the only sounds you could here during Sondre's talking was giggling, giggling, giggling. His superpower is making all that look upon him instantly smitten. Or smi'en, as Liam said last night. :)