3s

i'm all about the threes. yeah, there's something fine about driving the lane through a sea of muscle in order to score the big basket, but for me, the joy is outside the perimeter. when the ball reaches my hand and i'm 22 to 24 feet away from the hoop, it's go time. i like faking the drive, but they sure as hell know I ain't going in the for lay-up. if there's an open man, i'll hit him. assists are part of the game plan. this is my place though. everyone knows it and i'm ready to walk to walk I talk. bank or swish, i don't care. as long as it's three points on the board. my feet know the drill too. i'm on the line, I step back. i'm not letting the ref decide my fate. it's three or nothing. i'm all about the threes.

final seconds and we're down one or two, I know Jerome has the hot hands. he's got the power and the finesse. we'll give him the ball. we're down by three or four. it's my rock. I'm Gilbraltar. Invincible. you can count three on me. one. two. three. solid. we lost yesterday's game because Ken had the streak. he was four for four. i told 'em it was cause I rode the bench most the night. when I was in, there were lanes open wide. 10 assists ain't bad. we needed three, though. playoff time. four for five didn't cut it. we're out and i'm at home watching the kids. i'm teaching them about the three. wife says they need to know about number one and number two right now if you know what I mean. there ain't no three in the can. ain't no three there that's for sure. I'm all about the threes. that's me.

And the crowd. goes. Wild!!!

if it wasn't for the work...there wouldn't be any more work

work. it's not the job. the job takes place during the day and you are provided with a paycheck for the job. work, or the work is something that is happening all the time. it is a continuous study. an execution. art. in motion. work sometimes feels like the job or a job, but step back for a moment and you will find it is nothing like it. it's not the job. I've said this already. I know. it's not the job.

to continue the work you must struggle, suffer, survive...unless you have a silver spoon. it's o.k. if you do, but don't expect to show up on 24 after a brief stint on NYPD Blue and nothing much else in between. a silver spoon may feed you, but it rarely keeps you in motion. i say rarely because rarely it is the silver spoon that puts a fork in us all, shows us all that we are merely here, that they are the man...in art, this is rare. most silver spoons show up with a phone in their ear and give nothing back to the community.

work happens in a community. alone we are walking the earth. together we keep it revolving. evolving. taxing, i know. we're all tired, burnt out, exhausted, cashed, passed, finished...the work has just began. that extra push, the additional pull, genius is around the corner and lurking in the shadows where the sidewalk ends. down and out is where we all begin.

i've been working for a while now. known it was going to be work for a while now. that's what we all need to know. work is work. it is not play, but it is fun. it is exciting and it is rewarding. it is our chance to band together. for purpose. to speak and listen and act. to design and write and build. pursue. until we are blue in the face. honestly, i wouldn't have it any other way.

which way will you have it?

A CONSIDERABLE VOICE

an interview with actress, Erin Barlow on April 15, 2007
by Joshua Aaron Weinstein

The Mercury Café is packed with coffee drinkers, tea sippers, hardcore readers and computer screen junkies. The large warehouse turned coffee-stop, littered with wall art, randomly set couches, tables and chairs, books and a friendly service counter, offers an intellectual’s dream environment without excluding the mere passerby from basic human needs. You don’t need to wax poetic to remain in the Mercury Café, all you need is an appreciation for homegrown goodness and a taste for café splendors. On recent visits, I’ve enjoyed cold cut sandwiches or dessert cakes, but today I’m going for a cup of Joe with room to add cream and sugar. My interviewee, Erin Barlow, has ordered the same, except there is no room for cream or sugar in her cup. She is drinking her coffee black. “Always black,” she says. Barlow is hardcore.

Maybe it is her hardcore nature that has landed her the role of Procne in LiveWire Chicago Theatre’s production of The Love of the Nightingale currently running through April 29 at the side project theatre (1439 West Jarvis). Procne is an Athenian princess who is married off to the King of Thrace, Tereus, after he helps Athens win the war. Procne is the prize bestowed on Tereus by the King Pandion, Procne’s father. Living in another land away from her family is the journey playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker starts Procne on. Revenge is her end.

JAW: Talk to me a little about Procne's journey from Athens, a land of philosophy, to Thrace, a land of sport.

EB: It’s a hard transition for her. She is coming from a place where truth, wisdom and peace are the norm and her people are reluctant to be at war. She’s married off to a warrior and brought to a land where she has nothing in common with its citizens. She has no words to converse with them. Her only company is a group of savage women who are no match for her word play. She is intelligent and her engagement has left her devoid and her life becomes very depressed so she sends for her sister. It’s been a few years and she believes Philomel, her sister, is old enough to make the journey.

JAW: In my first interview on the play, I talked with Danielle O’Farrell, who plays Philomel, Procne’s sister. I asked her if she had sisters and she answered for both of you. Both of you, playing sisters, don’t have any sisters of your own, but you have friends who you consider sisters?

EB: Of course.

JAW: How far would you travel for them?

EB: Anywhere they needed me to go. What did Danielle say?

JAW: I don’t know where I wouldn’t.
JAW: And so, her sister is sent for and assumedly is being brought to Thrace to reunite with Procne, who has now become immersed in the Thracian culture. We even see this visually with costume and make-up by designer, Erin Fast. There is a change in the Procne's character.

EB: At this point, her husband has been gone for 2 months. Along with the lack of conversation, she has no matrimonial relationship. She doesn’t know what’s going on and for all she knows she could be a widow. Which means she would be in charge of this country. She’d be the one running the show. She attempts to acclimate with the women she has previously silenced. She needs to get in with the Thracian women to see if they have civility enough to stand behind her.

JAW: But her husband returns and while getting acclimated she seems to let her guard down at the end and takes her menacing husband's word for her sister's death as well as appear to start loving him; she even attends her first annual Bacchae festival.

EB: I think she pretty much resigns herself to “this is what is my life is going to be”. With Tereus, she approaches him with “let’s do this”. He’s her family. Her husband. She wants to be happy with it. She still remains Athenian though which we see in her scene with Itys. She’s asking, “Is this my son?” “I raised him?” She wants him to be a wise King and is very surprised when all he wants is to be a warrior.

JAW: In a sense, Procne's marriage to Tereus silences her. In a time and culture that a woman has no choice over the matter, she has no alternative, but to be silenced. Philomel is also silenced by Tereus in a more physically violent way. What are your feelings on being silenced by men and how have you been able to fight against the norm to have such a considerable voice?

EB: I wasn’t raised around a lot of men. My mother and my mother alone raised me. I never had to experience being in a situation of being silenced by any man. I’ve witnessed it in friends where the relationship isn’t built on equal parts; where they aren’t able to express themselves equally. It’s sad.

JAW: Catherine Maxwell, literary critic and professor at Queen Mary's School of London, writes, "Procne, who has considered the possibility of either blinding or muting her husband realizes he will be punished more clearly by the loss of his son. Itys, described as 'the image of his father', and clearly his substitute as well as his heir, is violently slain and dismembered by the women. When Tereus is informed of his son's death, the wildly disarrayed and blood-bespattered Philomela mutely presents him with Itys' severed head. At one stroke Tereus' male issue and his hopes for futurity are decisively cut off." This final act, of course, is only told in the myth and not the play. I think we'd have to do a film version to have the head of a kid on a platter shown, but this act of "castration" as Maxwell associates, could it almost be seen as an abortive act on Procne's part?

EB: No. She’s actually cutting off the line. He has raped and mutilated her sister and violated their sanctity of marriage. All for the love of his country. He even says it, “I love my country. I love my son.” So, she kills off the line to his great country. Destroying everything. He has no chance of another son. Ultimately, it’s not about Itys. I feel she doesn’t even know him. He wasn’t really been raised by her. Thracian and Athenian childrearing were probably very different.

JAW: Sophocles wrote of this myth that in the end, it is Philomel who turns into a swallow and Procne a nightingale. Later accounts by Ovid and English poet, Keats, write the myth as Wertenbaker's play does where Procne is the swallow and Philomel the nightingale. It seems to me a more tragic ending to put it Sophocles' way, but more dramatic the way The Love of the Nightingale presents it. Thoughts?

EB: Yes. It is more dramatic.

JAW: Wertenbaker is a British playwright, but this story parallels some of my feelings about the shift we are seeing in American culture. Do you think there is an American philosophy or art that could emerge over the shadows of our sports? And how?

EB: I see a lot of parallels between Tereus, and Thrace, with the current state of our country. The male chorus says, “What hasn’t been said and done in the sake of the future.” We hear this is good, this is for the future, but like Tereus there’s never a right justification for what is being done. It’s pure arrogance. In our play, Tereus is the one who takes what he wants. He’s the one who leads people into war. When he decides to rape Philomel, I don’t think he believes there will be consequences to his actions. It’s his realization that he may in fact need to cover his ass, that he needs to cover up his own secrets, which leads him to cut out her tongue. He knows the soldiers will always be there to pat his back. What ever he does. He’s their leader.

JAW: How do you think he sees Procne?

EB: She’s treated no differently. He has no obligations to her. Women are separate.

JAW: Even Thracian women?

EB: Thracian women are not necessarily women who would engage in war. They’re concerned with doom and darkness, but not warriors.

JAW: How does Procne purport the feminist view?

EB: She’s still Athenian and has the belief that women and men are equal then with the arranged marriage, rape, etc. Philomel and Procne become fellow soldiers. The realization that the men and Tereus come to is that we are capable of the same amount of violence. He is threatened that we will come back at him in the end so he hunts us down. And beforehand, he is threatened that Philomel will speak. That we will all speak really.

JAW: Is Timberlake Wertenbaker saying, “Watch out?”

EB: No. I think her purpose is to show the horrors we can inflict on each other and the power to speak up for ourselves.

Barlow certainly has the power and the fury. I apologize for making her get a little political, but know she’s more than happy to answer a question or two about the state of the union. “In rehearsals, it happened as well. I went off on a political tangent and everyone was a little thrown off.” She’s hardcore. Watch out.

Erin Barlow can be seen in LiveWire Chicago Theatre’s production of The Love of the Nightingale which runs through April 29th at the side project theatre (1439West Jarvis Ave.); shows are Thursday – Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 2 pm. Tickets are $15 with $12 student and senior discount tickets available as well as $10 industry night seats on Thursday and Sunday with headshot and resume. Call 773.412.8089 for reservations.

QUEST FOR PHILOMEL

An interview with actress, Danielle O’Farrell, on Saturday, April 7, 2007
by Joshua Aaron Weinstein

Sitting in the Charmer’s Café, a coffee-stop across the street from the side project theatre in Roger’s Park where LiveWire Chicago Theatre is presenting Timberlake Wertenbaker’s play The Love of the Nightingale, I await the arrival of Danielle O’Farrell, actress, currently inhabiting the lead role of Philomel in a retelling of an ancient Greek myth following two sisters and a menacing King living in a violent time.

The Café is buzzing; brewing like it has time and time again. Being visiting artists at the side project, LiveWire has presented their entire season in the new studio space along with their final show last season in the old studio. Being a company member of LiveWire, this corner café, and the theatre on the other side of the street, has become a home away from home (I recommend the bagel and lox).

I get a call. It’s from New York. The producers of my first short film are ready to sit down and complete the project. While hashing out the logistics of my upcoming trip, Ms. O’Farrell walks in beaming with a bright green winter coat and a hankering for cereal. Yes, it’s April in Chicago. Winter coats are still out and the sky is grey outside the window of the bustling Café as we begin our conversation.

JAW: Opening night was fantastic. I thought the performances from preview to opening night improved dramatically. Wednesday’s preview, I was able to see your journey, but the ensemble really came together on Thursday’s opening to unfold a timeless story before our eyes.

DO: Thank you. We do a group warm-up before the show to get everyone on the same page and know where we all are. The warm-up on Thursday was really great. Wednesday, we weren’t all there.

JAW: How do you prepare for the transition between rehearsals and opening?

DO: What I love about rehearsals is getting to play and make choices. By opening you’ve got to figure it out and know where you are going. Rehearsal set the boundaries. And during the run I get to play within those boundaries. There is also a time when you need the audience and I love being able to talk to them.

JAW: Do you have a most memorable opening?

DO: This one was pretty wonderful. Preview night, everything went wrong, in my opinion. Tech issues, costume issues, blood issues, I was on stage in a slip and not my real costume. Did I mention blood issues? I didn’t have my head in the show. I think because everything went wrong then I was very in the play on opening. Thinking about family in play. My sister.

JAW: Do you have any sisters?

DO: No. Neither Erin [Barlow, plays Procne, Philomel’s sister] or I have sisters.

JAW: You have friends you consider sisters, though?

DO: Of course. There’s a group of us that been together since fourth grade.

JAW: How far would you travel for them?

DO: I don’t know where I wouldn’t.

JAW: What have been your favorite roles?

DO: Philomel. Maggie in Maggie: A girl on the street. I just understudied with Chicago Shakespeare in Taming of the Shrew. That one in particular was memorable because it was my first Shakespeare; besides in high school where I played a wench.

JAW: Are there any roles you haven't had a chance to play but are dying to play?

DO: Portia in Merchant of Veince and Violet in Twelfth Night. [Later in our conversation, Thomasina from Arcadia was added to the list]

JAW: Who is Philomel?

DO: She, in goodness and truth, is speaking. Her spine is ‘I want to know. I want to understand.’ The opening scene she is saying “No, no, no tell me tell.” First it’s about sex. Then it’s about her sister followed by ‘Can you hear me?’ and ‘What made you do this to me?’ She’s always asking questions. It’s important for her to speak; and the taking of action. Doing. It’s not enough to believe, you have to act.

JAW: At the end of the play, Philomel is about to tell Itys the reason why violence is so wrong, but she is interrupted by another question “What is wrong?” which she answers “It is what isn't right,” and he replies “What isn't right?” Do you think it's more important that Itys learn the reason why violence is wrong or the difference between right and wrong?

DO: I think the beauty of play is that we leave the audience with the question. Itys says “Didn’t you want me to ask questions?” Wertenbaker doesn’t give us the answer and in turn is saying, how could we even know what is right. In the end it is about asking questions. Constantly questioning.

JAW: This is from feminist.com. “I would like to see a party that’s founded on ending violence across the board – the violence of poverty, the violence of oppression, the violence of rape, the violence of what we’re doing to the Earth, the violence of health care deprivation. And I would like to see us construct a new way, a new party, a new vision internationally, that is about bringing equity to the world, balance to the world, so that you don’t have 90% of the world totally impoverished, and 2% of the world owning everything.” Eve Ensler, playwright. I also remember reading a quote of hers where she actually stated her goals as trying to end violence by year X. I forget the year. Do you think that’s an obtainable goal?

DO: It’s important to believe it is obtainable. My mom, one of the amazing women in my life says, “We do right because it is right not because it achieves results.” It’s the journey. The Zen.

JAW: Nightingale is a feminist play. It tells the story of two women who after years of abuse, physical, as well as psychological, stand up for themselves and take down the men of Thrace. However, they do so with violence. A very cold act of revenge. Do you think Timberlake Wertenbaker’s vision of the world is that violence is a never-ending cycle?

DO: That’s what she says in The Love of the Nightingale. Philomel says “We were all so angry the bloodshed would have gone on forever.” The play is about anger and what results of anger. It also reminds me of Merchant and Portia who says “in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation.” We have to learn to forgive. If we are able to forgive then maybe the violence will stop, but violence will continues as long as we are unable to forgive. I think that’s what Wertenbaker is saying with this piece.

JAW: I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of words and the price of silence. As a writer, I have been very inspired by this process even in my peripheral role. I’ve finished two plays since Glenn [Proud, Director of Nightingale and LiveWire Artistic Director] and I first sat down to talk about the production. Philomel is silenced because of her defiant speech and by silencing her Tereus loses all of his power. Catherine Maxwell, literary critic and professor and Queen Mary University of London, talks of the two pinnacle violent acts as castration. She wrote, “At one stroke Tereus' male issue and his hopes for futurity are decisively cut off.” Philomel, however, becomes a Nightingale, in Wertenbaker’s play, and is able to sing again. Myself, I feel castrated, when I’m not writing. Have you ever gotten that sense of silence in your life or as an actress?

DO: What I hate the most is when people won’t pay attention to me. I won’t be silenced. I’ve got to talk the entire thing out. My boyfriend hates that. I won’t go to bed unless we’ve talked it all out. I can’t function when people don’t pay attention. I love the silence in theatre where people kindly sit in front of you and let you give them your ideas. That’s why I do theatre.

JAW: Who is Adam?

DO: My boyfriend. He’s an actor. He’ll come see the show next week. He likes waiting until after opening weekend. This may not be his cup of tea. Watching all these things happen to me on stage.

JAW: This play isn’t all about violence and sadness, there is some great joy surrounding these characters, and of course, we praise Dionysus and have the Annual Bacchae festival, which is supposedly the only day of the year which women can act madly and drink. How many days of the year do you act madly?

DO: My birthday every year. And I make everyone around me mad too. There’s food, wine and what I want to do at the exact time I want to do. Also, when I’m with my girlfriends. There’s always a big party. We have coffee which turns into dinner which turns into wine into a sleepover.

JAW: Stoppard or Shakespeare?

DO: That’s the meanest question anyone has every asked. I want to be on record as saying that. I have to say Shakespeare.

JAW: Hepburn or Winslet?

DO: Another very mean question, but Winslet has the edge for being a full figured woman. I also heard Hepburn abominable to co-stars.

JAW: You don’t have to answer this one, Erin Barlow or Saren Nofs-Snyder?

DO: Erin is my sister, I couldn’t pick anyone else.

JAW: Who judges you the most?

DO: An actor friend of mine says, “I don’t feel like judging anyone, because I’m so mean when judging myself.” So, myself. I don’t like judging people. My family also holds me to higher standards.

JAW: Who is Danielle?

DO: My freshman showcase at Roosevelt was titled, This is me. This is the world. We all had to do monologues based on that theme. Mine started, “I am flame tress. British born. Keats addicted. Intensely emotional. Caramel Macchiato loving.” It then became vaguer and vaguer. It ended, “Earth born hair kept thinking feeling thirsty human being.” That’s my pretentious moment. You would also have to say, pretentious.

We end there and Danielle comments on the good houses we’ve been having and how she likes knowing when reviewers are coming. During one performance, she says she turned her head out to the audience to give a speech and there was Hedy Weiss. She paused a moment and said to herself, “Shit, now I have to act.”

LiveWire Chicago Theatre’s production of The Love of the Nightingale runs through April 29th at the side project theatre (1439West Jarvis Ave.); Thur – Sat at 8pm and Sun at 2 pm. Tickets are $15; $12 student and senior tickets available; $10 industry night on Thur and Sun w/ headshot and resume. Call 773.412.8089 for reservations.

Danielle O’Farrell (Philomele) is a graduate of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. Most recently, she has understudied for Short Shakespeare! The Taming of the Shrew (Bianca) at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. She has also worked on Remy Bumpo’s The Real Thing (Debbie U/S), Orpheus Descending (Sister Temple) at American Theatre Company, Maggie: A Girl on the Street (Maggie) at the side project, and of course, No Exit (Estelle) last fall with LiveWire Chicago Theatre.

Joshua Aaron Weinstein (Writer) has produced two original adaptations with LiveWire Chicago Theatre (F. [co-production with Groundup Theatre] and Night of Innocent Games) and a couple original one-acts (The Bout [presented at the Abbie Hoffman Festival] and A/other Lover). Other productions include Love on Planet Telex (FirstStage LA), Putting Him Down (William Inge Festival) and two short films Urbana and Handshake of a Stranger with his film production company Wet City Productions. You can read samples of his work online at www.jaaronweinstein.com.

It's the Little Things

As an ongoing tradition, my sister and I went the see a movie at the local independent theatre. You see, it’s not only time and conversation that I get to share with my sister, but it gives us both a chance to open our minds to some great movies that one never gets to see unless you stumble upon them. Sometimes you find a real gem.

Tonight, we found an absolute diamond in the rough. An American/Indian film called: The Namesake. You must see this film. It is based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s best-selling novel. It was an emotional roller coaster. From laughter to tears and back again, it left me feeling enlightened. I won’t tell you anything about it, except, it’s the kind of film that makes me want to not only give to the movie industry as an artist, but to make a contribution to the whole world, living as a good human being.

In my eyes, that makes for a good movie.

--Benjamin D. Bain
April 8, 2007

your tube or my place

he asks her if she wants to go back to his place, but she says, "i've already seen your place and prefer mine. would you like to go to my place?" she asks, but he can't.

"there's a show I really want to watch tonight and you don't have cable."

"we could probably watch it on youtube tomorrow," she replies hoping he's interested in an evening of, well, for g-dsake, she's got half her clothes off already and they haven't even left the restaurant.

with arrogance, he shoots her down, "the quality is shit," and sinks his teeth into her breast.

Silence.

"I prefer marsala to kiev."

"We could go to your place as long as your roommates aren't home."

"Sure," he speaks with an air of cynicism, "I'll just call them up and tell them they have to go hang out in the alley for a while until you've climaxed."

"I doubt that will ever happen."

Silence.

he pays the bill though she offers to split it with him. "my tax returns just came in."

"oh," she lets out although after he drops her off and she slips into her pajamas she thinks a better response would have been, "asshole."

in defiance of gravity

Tom Robbins wrote in Harper's 2004 a musing titled "In Defiance of Gravity".

He wrote, “The quips of the condemned prisoner or dying patient tower dramatically above, say, sallies on TV sitcoms by reason of their gloriously inappropriate refusal, even at life’s most acute moment, to surrender to despair. The man who jokes in the executioner’s face can be destroyed but never defeated.”

As I sat on the can reading a reprint of the musing in his collection "Wild Ducks Flying Backward" (2005) a play came to mind...

A man on death row orders his final meal while a woman in terminal condition chokes down a cup of Jell-O. Both condemned, refusing to surrender to despair, engage their guard and nurse, respectfully, in an attempt to lighten the mood less they will be defeated.

In homage to Robbins' musing and his idea of "crazy wisdom" I've titled the play IN DEFIANCE OF GRAVITY. Coming soon to a theatre near you.

WHITE has also been completed. More on this one later...