Witness the Beauty of Live Theatre

On my first visit to Minneapolis as a real adult, on a weekend trip to visit my friend Allison and decide if I really wanted to come here, she took me to a show at a theatre company she was working for at the time. I’d heard of them before this trip because they’d received some national attention, but I’d never seen any of their work. The company was Theatre de la Jeune Lune and the show was Some People’s Kids performed at The Southern Theater.

Suddenly I couldn’t wait to be a part of theatre in Minneapolis. I loved it. There are images from that production which still float in my head over 20 years later. It was one of the most inventive, imaginative shows I’d seen and I was fascinated with these amazing performers.

Jump to 2011, and let’s skip the other amazing shows of theirs, my very brief stint working with them, their Tony award and their financial demise. The company has disbanded and moved on to other projects, or back to France. But now, suddenly, we have The MovingCompany, a new production company with two of the Luners, Dominique Serrand and Steve Epp, in a new piece back at the Southern Theater.

Their catch phrase: We Do Theater.

And damn, do they ever in Come Hell and High Water

With sadly serendipitous timing they’ve taken the real story of a 1927 Mississippi River flood, which displaced thousands and flooded farmlands and small towns when levees were released all to save the millions more in New Orleans (sound familiar) and turned it…..in to a beautifully staged tale.

Steve Epp has to be one of the most talented actors I’ve ever had the fortune to watch on stage. His work is finely detailed and deeply built. I felt I knew this man from him simply walking out on stage and looking at the audience. It was that fine tuned. And then as he began his story he transformed his character to himself at age 100 in a graceful move. In this he’s paired with Nathan Keepers who seems as if he were cut from the same cloth. Of course, they play the same character, and the way they do it is fascinating.

This show has some wonderful techniques. I truly love when typical object X magically, and most importantly simply, becomes something else entirely. There’s a moment where two people are traveling down the flooded river, lost for days. How do you put a flooded river and a boat on stage? A small pile of sandbags, a long board and actors balancing like a see-saw, gently swaying with the flow. Beautiful.

The whole ensemble of the piece, the staging and the techniques were immediately recognized by me as old school Jeune Lune, aka Dominique Serrand, the director. His power of imagination and ability to put that fascinating world out on stage is of a level only few people can obtain.

It made me long for the days of Some People’s Kids and Ballroom and Robinson Crusoe and Children of Paradise and….

This was brilliant story telling, inventive staging, deeply rooted characters and fine fine acting which reaffirmed for me the power of live theatre. Minneapolis is fortunate to still have these talented people making their home base in our city.

Where the Art is

I just happened upon a blog entry that was in response to an opinion piece published recently in the Huffington Post. I guess this article had made the rounds of the social networks last week, and I, despite my plethora of wasted hours in the TwitterFace* universe, somehow missed it.

(* I doubt I just made up this word, but I like it.)

It seems Mr. Kaiser is of the opinion that there isn’t enough good art being produced these days, and longs for the time when creators like Merce Cunningham and Tennessee Williams were filling our theaters, studios and halls. He feels the fine arts haven’t kept up, and that the development of new and innovative works is only found in the newer mediums, tv, film, etc. He goes on to conclude:

But the institutional nature of our arts ecology, a relatively recent phenomenon, means that groups of people are now more responsible for arts making than the individual. Boards, managers and producing consortia are overly-involved.

As Chavisory points out, Mr. Kaiser’s point goes astray, from artist to arts organizations being the reason for shortcoming.

Mr. Kaiser’s points are valid, or at least his facts seems accurate. It often does seem that many a board member or arts manager, or financial manager even, are at the center of deciding what gets produced or how. Sometimes an institution takes a risk, but only when it can be balanced by something else that can pay the bills. Look at the season of any 6-, 7- or 8-figure budgeted theatre company and if you see something new, daring or possibly “not for everyone” it likely has a counterpart or two that will more than make up for the lack of warm seats.

But really, I’m with Chavisory on this one. I know there’s new and creative and edgy and real art being performed. I can name half a dozen things off the top of my head that are appearing on stages in Minneapolis this week, or dozens this year. All with the inventiveness to be a potential Williams or an Ailey. But if you’re spending your days at the Kennedy Center and living amongst that ilk, if you’re looking to commercial theaters for your inspiration….well, you’re not going to see it often enough. Mr. Kaiser ought to consider going to the out-of-the-way, shoe-string budgeted productions where the work is more about the work, the results, the art, the story, the connection to an audience….rather than balancing the budget.

It’s no surprise Mr. Kaiser doesn’t know of the art that’s out there.

And if he did, perhaps he could help re-develop that commercially viable, yet artistically veined, performance world for which he longs, and help any of the brilliant playwrights, directors or choreographers reach a larger audience.

Mr. Kaiser may be his own solution.

Sanity Scratching

I think I’ve once again proven to myself that any creative outlet I have, no matter what form, helps keep me sane.

And happy.

But mostly sane.

This is a picture of the way the sky looked this morning as I headed out to work. (I certainly don’t want to even think about the ol’ day job, but it’s been a bear lately.) This morning there was this strange sunrise, where there were clear streaks of pink in the west, and this pink and purple and golden streaks in the east. It was really odd, and had a weird feeling. (This picture is completely untouched.)

So I snapped a picture. It was unexpected and beautiful. It made me think about the uniqueness of life, and the changeability. I knew those colors would be gone very soon, never to return. It made me think about living in the moment, in the here and now, and taking control of what’s happening. It made think about enjoying what’s in front of me and making the best of whatever that is at the moment. It made me realize life can be unexpected and surreal. Yesterday the sky didn’t have streaks of yellow or pink like this, but why today?

All this from a sunrise.

It also reminded me of the projects I have percolating. In some strange way, it made me think that anything’s possible with them.

Odd perhaps, but that’s how I felt.

Tonight I made some last minute changes to a script for a short (short) video, that we’re shooting tomorrow. Over the next week I’ll edit and tweak it in to something. I have an image of what it is. Whether I can pull that off or not is yet to be seen.

This coming week is the Fringe drawing, so I’ll know whether it’s time to buckle down and start on that project or not. That puts me a bit on edge, mostly due to pressure I’ll put on myself if we get in.

Tonight I chose this picture for my photo project. It seemed appropriate. And timely.

The itch is getting scratched. Slowly.

And ain’t that a helluva sky?