Is This Real Life?

I am unemployed. I am broke. I am an artist. Today, it all feels official.

For the first time in my life I have the time to write what I want, whenever I want. No master, no authority figure. On one side, it is liberating; the only rules and bounds that I face are those that I have set for myself. The other side of the coin, however, comes with a world of uncertainty and fear.

Writing is great, but paying my rent is even greater.

A travel journal, originally, this place has seen all sides of my opinions and view points - from my thoughts on Glee to Pat Robertson - so now, it is time for another shift. This will be my outlet, a portal into the life of a nobody Brooklyn writer trying to become a somebody.

For some preliminary information about my writing side, I am a film, theatre, and television writer with an odd love of pretentious literary fiction (I do hold a BFA after all, so it comes with the territory). I am terribly opinionated. I like what I like, and when I really hate something I always have a reason. Hate then, is separate from appreciation. I can appreciate a piece and yet truly hate the way it is written (cough, Virginia Woolf, Gertude Stein, cough), and I think that this is a necessary awareness for all writers. Appreciation of voice. Because, answer me this: what is a writer without their voice?

-E

[yes, I am aware I used "their" for "his or her" - I hate that gender neutral thing.]

"It's an insane thing, to write a play."

One day, as we all sat around our lounge, sipping cappuccinos, Michael West said to us, "It's an insane thing, to write a play." There we were, aspiring playwrights living in Ireland, about to start the unthinkable - write a play. We must have been mad, loons, all of us. Needless would Michael know that three weeks later he'd be winning the Irish Times Theatre Award for Best New Playwright. An insane thing, yes.

Sitting in my living room now, six months later and living back in New York City, I think I'm fully starting to realize the extent of those words. Being a writer, trying to create a world. It's an insane thing. I have completed two stage plays in my infant career (a one act, and a two act), and now that I am facing the reality of writing my second full length screenplay, I can't help but go back to those words. Have I lost my mind?

The only thing that is keeping me calm is - I think - the fact that I now personally know a successful writer. I spent 18 weeks with him, I drank coffees and pints with him, I talked about Simba and Hamlet with him. And now his success is becoming a reality. Michael's latest work, Freefall, is premiering at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin later this month, and I can't help but sit here in awe. I know him. I know the flesh and blood man that wrote that play, those words. If you don't know, the Abbey Theatre is the end-all, be-all of theatre in Ireland; it's the National Theatre, the hot tamale of the stage world. 

To think, Michael made an insane thing sane. He wrote a play. He did what I dream to do.  And now, all I can think is how much I want to be there to see it come to a reality, to watch that show grace the main stage of the Abbey in it's full fruition. 

Is truly is, an insane thing.

-E

Words From A Sudo-Pretentious Writer ...

I go to art school, I've gone to Tisch, and therefor I have a defacto air of pretension surrounding me. As much as I hate it, it is something that I am aware of and embrace wholeheartedly, but I do attempt to do everything in my power to supress my "know it all" urges.

This is not one of those times.

Being a writer is hard. It is work. End of story. It is something that you have to study and work at every day. It takes talent and skill and discipline, so it angers me when people think that they can do it, too. What has prompted my frustration, you might ask? Well, it's been a general mash-up of things, honestly. It's the pre-med student that thinks putting sentences together is easy, the architect that insists Waiting for Godot is a spiritual metaphor, or the uncle/aunt/insert-elder-here that says, "Oh, I've lived a crazy life, if I could I'd take 6 months off and write a novel." Yes. Because writing is that easy. I want to tell that person, "You do that. In fact, why don't we switch places, and while you're taking that six months off I'll go run your investment firm on Wall Street."

People forget that writing is actually a field of work, an art form. There is a reason I am earning a Bachelors of Fine Arts IN Writing. It is because I have worked and studied the craft for four years, just as a doctor has studied medicine and a business executive has studied business. So yes, I find it insulting when someone else says that they can do it too, "if only they had the time." We would all do anything if we had the time. I would be a surgeon - if I had the time - but you don't see me cutting into people just because I've watched the Health Channel one too many times.

Get into a conversation about a story or a novel or a movie with a writer and chances are you will get a debate. It's not a conscious thing; that's the way our brains work. We analyze and judge and criticize anything that makes an attempt at telling a story. If someone out there has found a way to turn that part of their brain off, then please, let me know! I do not say that a TV show/movie/book sucks because my life goal is to rain on your parade or because I think that I am smarter or more intelligent. I say that a TV show/movie/book sucks because it is conventional or stock or unintelligent. I say that a plot is cliche because it is, and nine times out of ten, I've seen Faulkner, Joyce, Saunders, O'Connor, Murakami, Marquez, Pamuk, MacDonagh, Wilder, or Beckett do it better.

-E

Michael West still dominates my life.

I'm just saying.

Here is his latest interview, describing his play Freefall from Edinburgh ... by far one of the best professors that I've ever had.

-E

No Escape

No Escape, the latest installment in a documentary-theatre series at Dublin's Project Arts Centre, is interesting to say the least. By no stretch of the definition can it be labeled a play, but it isn't reality, either.

The documentary piece acted as an expose into The Ryan Report (for the non-Irish, it's an in depth investigation into child abuse in the church school systems). Not a happy subject, eh? In a nutshell, it was an evening over-stuffed with facts, data, and cold hard information.

I don't know if it's appropriate to say that I enjoyed the play, but it most certainly kept me thinking and engaged. The layout is very much a subjective one, where the slue of information will either affect or deter you. In my case, the over-innundation of facts made it all the more personal, conveying, intriguing. It made you feel suffocated, as if it would never end, and that is the reality of the situation.

On a production level, I have to say that it was flawed. The main actor flubbed his lines on more than one occasion, and for the most part I forgive it. I understand that it’s hard to memorize all of those details, but also - you’re a professional actor, man. Also, the “theatrical” detail of the cast writing on glass would have been much more effective if done consistently. I wanted to see every glass panel covered in dates and statistics so that the feeling of suffocation could be intensified.

At the end of it, I felt like I was watching a live episode of Dateline. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just simply not what I expected.

This Week In Review

So, the week is almost at an end so I thought I’d do my best to fill the void with an update.

Sunday:
We made friends with random people in our hostel -- aka 3 guys from Sri Lanka, a guy from Namibia, and then a Parisian from Gambon who confessed his love for me after about 10 minutes. His name was Barton and he looked like Djimon Hounsou.

Monday:

The Huntarian Museum at the University of Glasgow was closed for the 3rd day in a row, so Jaime and I wandered around the city for the entire day. Found these really awesome bridges and ended up wandering through the equivalent of Scottish New Jersey on the North Side of the city. It was pretty epic. There is photo documentation. Then we saw A Single Man and I fell in love. It was wonderful.

Tuesday:

We took a cab to Glasgow airport at 0500, only to arrive at 5:30 and learn that we were in fact at the wrong airport (no one bothered to correct us). So we ended up taking a £100 cab ride to the correct airport an hour away and luckily got there just before the gate closed. Then after security they weighed our bags (which has never happened before) and we ended up having to pay £35 each for carry-ons that the flight crew didn’t even check. We finally got back to our flat in Dublin around 0900, just in time for Jaime to get to class. Thus ... the actual day began.

Went to lunch at Chorus, where we ran out of time so Sirus let us take our plates and silverware to class and then bring it back. It was pretty great. Kerry and I just walked in to Susanne’s class with these massive plates of omelets and chips ... people were jealous and we were full. In class I had to suffer the torment that was the movie Adam and Paul, and I’m pretty sure I am the only person that hated it with a burning passion. In a word: boring. I just wrote a review on it, so I might share my thoughts in a little bit, have no fear.

Then around 0930 Steven and Kristen finally got here (apparently the immigration guys looked me up in the computer to varify that they were staying with me and that I was a valid temporary citizen -- WEIRD) and we went to grab a pint over at Farrington’s. The music was great, but not gonna lie, we were dead. The day felt like a week.

Wednesday:

Fintan O’Toole came and spoke to us. It was pretty epic. I’ll be honest though, since he’s a theatre critic and all I definitely thought he was going to be talking to us about, you know, Irish theatre, but the entire thing ended up being about post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. It was incredibly interesting, actually, and I really want to read his new book now. After class Steven and I skyped into our first Orientation Meeting back at Pratt and were pretty amused. It was a fun time, seeing people and thinking about all the stress that awaits us back in the states. Joy.

Thursday:
Oh, today. Did I mention that the first draft of my full length play is due in less than 24 hours? Fun, right? Not. Lies. All lies. I’ve been teetering page 56 for the past week and can’t seem to stretch things out any further so far. It’s awesome. So, instead, I am watching Eraser with Kristen and Steven, drinking my third cappuccino of the day, and eagerly awaiting my take-away from Queen of Tarts.

Tonight is going to be a looooooong night.

-E

Broken Croí/Heart Briste -- An Dráma

So I went and saw Broken Croi/Heart Briste at the Project Arts Centre here in Dublin tonight, and I’ve got to say that I really loved it. Now, interwebs, I’m not a fan of Post Modernist Theatre. I’ve tried to like it, and I usually just can’t grasp my head around the more conceptualist styles of theatre, but Broken Croi/Heart Briste was seriously good, in my opinion.

There is minor audience participation, and it even starts with an actor talking to you as you take your seats. And basically, in essence, it was a show about the divide in language and the struggle of communication for two people. It’s written in Irish with English subtitles, and I still didn’t have a problem understanding anything, because the emotions were there in the writing. So, two thumbs up, interwebs. I think that Manchán Magan did a great job as writer and actor.

A blurb from Magan’s website -- “A self-loathing dancer and a fanatical Gaeilgeoir seek to connect in a language lesson that swerves from slapstick to acrimony to personal revelation. It’s a comedic and heartfelt look at fractured relationships, using a blend of Irish and English to reveal the warped truth behind our passions. Manchán Magan is the kilt-clad pedagogue vying with his mutinous teenage side-kick Eva O’Connor, both using language in a way that makes it understandable and relevant to all. Is it in Irish? Can language be a weapon? Who the feic knows?”

After the show we sat down and had a chat with Magan, and I thought it was just an overall pleasant experience ... Magan on the Irish going to the theatre: “You’ve all been to the Abbey. (Looks directly at me, YES, me) I know I’ve seen you there.”

- E

Irish Times Theatre Awards

Yeah, that’s my professor in that picture ... holding the award ... with his face all projected on a screen ...

The lovely Michael West just won the Best New Play award at the equivalent of the Tony’s over here in the Eire for his play Freefall. AND his wife, Annie, won for Best Director! Good craic, eh? I’m not going to lie -- we are all pretty excited about it over here! It’s not every day that an Award-Winning writer happens to be your professor ...

-E

Lies Susanne Told Me Number 512: “Michael West is very good.”

Here’s just a little excerpt from the Irish Times write up about the whole shebang ...

Yet the true stars of the evening were winners like director Annie Ryan, who used her acceptance speech on receipt of the award for best director for the Corn Exchange Theatre production of Freefall , to call for some kind of truce between those angered by the cuts in funding for so many theatre companies and the Arts Council members behind those decisions.

“Change is inevitable. There’s nothing we can do about that,” said Ryan, who said the Arts Council and Ireland’s theatre community must work together to find new solutions. “The question is, how do you harness the enormous energy that is released when something falls apart, and use it to create something better?”

Her husband Michael West, who received the Best New Play award for Freefall , also acknowledged the shake-up in Irish theatre that included a 48 per cent cut in the funding for Corn Exchange. “If the last few weeks have taught us anything, it’s how surprising theatre can be and what a privilege it is to work with it,” said West.

“The risk-taking that goes with making theatre is part of what we are and what we do.”

Who's the Silver Fox?

MARTIN MCDONAGH that’s who!

In an attempt to stray from my academic endeavors (aka, writing a bunch of term papers on Irish cinema and drama) I have taken to oogling at the very lovely man that is Martin McDonagh.

You can’t deny his appeal, interwebs. You just can’t.

It all started quite innocently, I swear. We’ve been talking about him in class for the past few weeks, and naturally the attractive jokes/comments began to arise from the female students.

And then I started writing my paper on The Pillowman (only one of the best plays ever. and I mean ever.) My intentions were strictly studious until I started researching essays in the lovely book that is “Martin McDonagh, A World of Savage Stories.”

I feel like my infatuation with him could eventually pose a problem to my academic focus, but until I start to develop a strong guilt complex, I am going to marvel in the lovely man that is an aesthetic combination of Anderson Cooper and James Dean.

Check him out.

-E

Little Gem

So ... we went to The Peacock (the smaller affiliate of the Abbey Theatre here in Dublin) to see yet another play for our Drama class. Now, we were all hoping for yet another terrible theatrical experience just so that we could have something to laugh at uproariously -- we’re harsh, I know.

But, instead of being created by another piece of poorly produced monologue theatre (*cough*TheFaithHealer*cough*) I was amazed when I found myself in fits of hysterical laughter at the show Little Gem.

Now, the only thing I knew about the play, interwebs, was the poster ... that didn’t say much. And I think that someone put it well by calling it, “a crude Irish Nora Ephron play.”

Check it out interwebs, while you still can. I want to be that grandmother when I’m old ... aside from the whole drama part. Because she is amazing. A maze ing.

that is all.

-E