Sic Transit Gloria Seami

In case LJ gets people facebook misses...

COME SEE THIS:

http://theatrepeople.com.au/whatson/colosseum.

I'm in it!

Well, we've tried it out on an audience now.... And it's going swimmingly! Amazing bunch of people doing amazing things.

There are 6 shows left, shows on Thursday, Friday & Saturday this week and next.

So Come along peoples! www.omniprop.org for info and bookings.

Also, if you're one of the lucky ones who's seen the show and you want to let us know what you thought of it, we'd welcome the feedback.

Email to enquiries@omniprop.org - and give us a piece of your mind! Please note, we may quote you in future publicity material*.

*Unless you thought it was a dog's breakfast, and that we should all be shot. We might not quote that kind of feedback....

And another one:

http://aussietheatre.com/comedy09reviews.htm#model

I'm stoked by getting mentions in these.... :).

Melbourne Model: The Musical from MU Student Union on Vimeo.

Theatre

I'm mildly obsessed... And I don't really know why. I like the idea of getting inside a story and enacting it, and of bringing it to life with my body and voice, either within strict conventions (like in musicals) or in a bizzare free-form way (like Helen's Seneca workshops).

I think I like people watching me - in essence it's just a form of exhibitionism. I also like the idea, taking someone's life/experiences/imagination and then layering yourself on top of it and turning it into something unique that can never, and will never, be recreated. Not even when you do the same scene the next night.

I also like theatre because it forces you to practice what you preach, to elaborate on your thoughts with your entire being. You have to deliver, you have to do, you have to act and you have to make choices. Often what the choices actually are is completely irrelevant, but you have to make them clearly, and you have to commit to them. And then you have to re-create that moment again and again. It challenges me more than anything else in life.

Balancing following your passion with earning a living

I'm fairly blaze about life.... I figure I'll always be able to make a living doing something. What it actually is doesn't really bother me, so long as I keep on performing.

So the balance is reached by asking myself the simple question: What is the minimum amount of paid work I can do to get by comfortably, and still give myself 3 nights a week to rehearse?

At the moment I've got that balance (or close to it, a bit more money would be nice, but I'm not starving). So all is well.

Intense relationships

I think it all goes back to my exposure as a youngin' to a relationship that was not working with mum and dad. I think that either I was going to be cynical, or over-compensate and put "love" up on a pedestal. You can guess what happened...

All this combined with my distinct lack of romance early on in life, and brought me to the conclusion that love is this bizzare, over-reaching, fatalistic thing. That relationships must be saved at all costs. And that you should do anything asked of you in a relationship. It meant that my commitment was absolute and my passion was unwavering. And that first moment when I realised someone showed some genuine romantic interest in me, well, I was besotted.

Living together after about 6 weeks, of course it will work! Marriage! Yeah sure! In the end I'm glad that it ended when it did. If it had gone on any longer we probably would have damaged each other.

But even that experience did not curb my enthusiasm. And we all know how that ended up...

And today. Have I learned my lesson? Hell no! And I never will! But for the first time in my life, I think I'm the one overwhelmed by the love someone else shows me...

Greek

I founded it you know.... I'm going to assume this is about the language.

I like the language because its mechanics are a billion times more interesting than that of our own. It's flexible, it's malleable, it gives you lots of ways to say the same thing (at least in English). Often by using the same words, but different inflections and grammar. So I'm pretty sure our language is inadequate when it comes to translating ancient Greek, but it's all we got!

I'm also an etymology geek. So it makes sense. And this is what I like about the modern language - it allows me get my etymology geek on in a whole knew way.

Oh, and inadvertently, my knowledge of modern Greek helped me to communicate to a Spanish speaker today who spoke very little English - because the Greek word for stairs is skala, and the Spanish word is scalides - so she understood!.

Post break up bonding

Interesting...
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Do you still have that brick?

Well it's been a while since I used this blog as a, well, you know blog.... So I thought I'd try something novel!

Anyway life is good. I've kept busy, kept on stage and kept the juices flowing nicely, all of which is great. I now have a joint account with Chris. I've never had a joint account with anyone in my life ever, so it's a big deal. Well it is to me. Today I get to do our first rental payment out of it! It's a big moment. Of course the biggest moment was when I came home earlier in the week and said

"Chris Chris Chris!"
"Yes Seamus" she replied, with much less enthusiasm and vigour than I....
"I bought Cheese"
"That's nice dear"
"And I used the card for the joint account - It's our first joint account purchase!"
"Oh, wow" she replied with a comparable level of enthusiasm and vigour to mine.

Here endeth the parable of the cheese.

So yeah. Applied to go to uni. Applied for a car loan. And I'm singing again! I've had the good fortune to be cast in Melbourne Model:The Musical's return season in March. It should be nuts. I'm playing Geoff Blainey. Had a BBQ with the cast and crew last night. I also discovered that work after a Sunday night piss up is not as easy as it used to be - surprise surprise.

Oh and Robert Doyle is the new lord mayor. So I'm glad I got out of the City of Melbourne game when I did!! :).

Great.

Really really fantastically conceived project that had drive, pace, a smattering of irreverancy and a great deal of craft to it. Zombies. MacBeth. Together at last in a dark comic mash of the grotesque, death, gore, literacism and pentameter.

The play takes place immediately after the conclusion of Macbeth - with the dust still settling on Dunsinane castle, Macbeth's corpse strewn headless in the background. Until things start to happen. Stirrings, starts and jitters at first. And then... it begins. MacBeth brought back to life. Head re-fixed, ambition re-kindled and the truth of the witches prophecy come true...

The script rolled and cascaded along.. It was surprisingly convincing as Shakespeare, and replete with classicism, witticism, couplets and pentameter. Structurally the play also followed in the footsteps of the bard. There's even a 'play within a play' , a 'porter' figure and a random cripple thrown in for good measure. The play does murder Hamlet in places. You'll see what I mean if you see the show, it was one of my favourite moments. There's plenty of Shakespeare alluded to in this show. And plenty of classics too. Virgil even has a cameo...

Oh... And then there's the schlock. Oooooh the schlock. It was hilarious. Horror movie special effects, body organs and blood blood and more blood! The set was cryptesque, dark and bare. Very earthen tones across set and costumes. The other-worldliness and under-worldliness of the show came across very clearly. Reminded me of something from Tales of the Crypt keeper... But good. The characters were kitted up in suitable period garb - furs and linen. The odd characters that departed from this palette all did so for very clear reasons (Fleance was the prime example). The lighting was nice and eerie too. Special mention must also be made of the make up in this show. From the witches (one had 1 eye, one had a goatee) to Macbeth's gaping neck wound to Lady MacBeth's dirt covered visage. It was stunning, and highly detailed. And the blood. Did I mention the blood?

Very effective staging meant there were no dull moments here. Actors emerged from all corners, and scenes rolled into each other seamlessly, and the play didn't have any dead moments (pun intended), as we rolled from Shakespeare's Scotland into Night of the Living Dead - or something...

Oh, the ensemble were all great too. I won't mention stand outs because everyone was a stand out. Lots of effective doubling up from the bit parts, and very effective focus from the leads.

So yes. If you missed it the first couple of times around, see this play. It's in till November 23.

Yesterday Helen, Sam and I travelled out to Broadmeadowns (in _audhumla_'s car - hereafter referred to as the 'Omnipropmobile'). We were organised. Did a lines run on the way up, and seemed to remember everything.

We were performing for some classics and some drama students at Penola Catholic College. After some issues finding the joint, we arrived in plenty of time, organised ourselves, had time for a chat with the teacher and went off to the performance space. It was great. The space was ideal.

We'd embarked upon the preparations for this gig about a week ago. No I'm not kidding. We rehearsed it twice. It was a killer scene the 'Court case' scene with Helen and Hecuba from "The Trojan Women" by Euripides. A really good translation too. It required a cast of 3. Helen, Hecuba and Menelaus.

As fate would have it our cast was: yours truly, Sam Browne and Helen Slaney. So..... We'd discussed at an earlier juncture playing with some gender reversals here and there. "Wouldn't it be funny if Sam was Helen?!?!?". And as is so often the case in our productions, these were prophetic words....

Sam was indeed Helen of Sparta. The most beautiful woman in the world. It left Helen to play Menelaus. And yours truly - beard and all - playing Hecuba. BUT (and this was the key) we just played the scene. Didn't put on falsettos, didn't camp it up and didn't even acknowledge gender as a factor in the scene beyond its impact on the status of the characters.

The result was something that ended up being quite intense. Hecuba's pain thought my voice. Helen's arrogonce and self-assuredness in her own beauty through Sam's. And Menelaus' pig-headedness, simplicity and ultimate weakness through Helen's (Slaney - it gets confusing when Helen plays Helen's husband...).

So what happened when we showed it to a bunch of 16-17 year olds:

Giggles.

Many giggles.

For about 20 seconds.

Then they just watched.

They were a great audience. Really really good. They watched, took it in, asked (and were asked) some good questions.

"What's it like playing these characters - do you learn more about them than when you read it?" Best TIE question ever, because it gets to the core of why this work is important if you want to understand classical literature, and especially theatre.

And this one from the teacher to the students:

"Did the way this was done with the men playing women change the scene for you at all?" And the kids, bless their hearts, said that once they got over the shoke, no it didn't. The scene just unfolded.

And then there were some really specific questions about the play, about our choices with the shape of the scene, the props and costumes and about how we got into this all in the first place.

It's always great when you achieve your artistic objective in something. When an audience responds the way you want them to.