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Not sure anybody is reading this, but just FYI, the reason there hasn't been much here for a while except Letterboxd movie review links isn't because I stopped writing anything else. It's because most of what I've written in the last year is theater/performance art material for the San Francisco Neo-Futurists.

The SF Neos are a relatively recent (10 years) offshoot of the original Chicago company that's now 35 years old, by way of the New York sister group. Pretty much everyone in Chicago knows what that is, but I haven't spent much time in Chicago and so I only found out about it when I had the great good luck to meet Dave Awl and Diana Slickman in 2005. I could see immediately that this was something I needed in my life, so it was pretty exciting when the SF group started in 2013, and I became a loyal fan to a possibly annoying degree, and unsuccessfully auditioned for them early on. More recently I did some work for them as a theater tech, and then last year I finally got my nerve up to audition again and got in. It's been pretty great, not just in general because I'd been itching to perform more after many years of not pursuing theater, but also because I specifically love this group and their work.

But, being theater, it's mostly ephemeral work. I might post some of my own short pieces online at some point, and maybe one day we'll do a big book like the ones Dave and Diana did, but right now I'm content to have a couple of them in the little anthology chapbook/zine that we publish every year. The 2022 chapbook (which also includes a bunch of little drawings I did) is available at the merch table at our shows; people in Chicago may also find one at Quimby's.

There are various comics projects that I keep working on very slowly, and this year I printed a few small zine/minicomic things, like this and this and this.

Movies: The Man with Two Brains (1983, ***½), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014, ****½), Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004, ***), Groundhog Day (1993, ****), Life After Flash (2017, ***), The Gospel at Colonus (1985, *****), Cat People (1942, ****½), Doctor Atomic (2007, ****), Suk Suk (Twilight's Kiss) (2020, ****), National Theatre Live: A Midsummer Night's Dream (2019, ****)

Books/comics: Zenith—Morrison/Yeowell (1987-1990, ***), Sebastian O—Morrison/Yeowell (1993, **), The Final Programme—Moorcock (1968, ***), A Cure for Cancer—Moorcock (1971, **), The English Assassin—Moorcock (1972, **), The Condition of Muzak—Moorcock (1977, ***)

This was written on May 24 of this year, for friends and family. Putting it here now because I can't let 2019 go out without acknowledging the loss that hurt the most. I don't really know who reads this blog, but it's likely that this name won't mean anything to most people, and that feels wrong.

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So long, Camilla Schade.



Camilla was basically part of my family. After meeting my parents in 1975 when I was two and she was in college, she moved to Pennsylvania when the rest of us did in 1977, and was around more or less all the time for more or less all of my childhood and adolescence, working closely with their theater company in Lancaster and touring with us for long stretches in a van. Besides having literally babysat me and my sister, she also formed a lot of my ideas of what acting was (especially comic acting in a solo show, since I saw her first one about a million times, but she was versatile to a degree that at the time I didn't understand was really unusual); she was also a pretty good cartoonist, though I'm not sure how much she ever did with that other than set pieces and programs; and she was basically the coolest grownup I had ever met.

While still working with the company a lot, she started writing and directing her own stuff pretty soon and became a local legend, so that many years later after having moved to western New York, she still had a loyal following in Lancaster. So, after she received a terminal diagnosis recently, she decided to create a solo show about it and travel 200 miles to do that show, as one does. Meg and I went to Lancaster to see her do it, and you can see it too if you like, it's great: here. We got to hang out for a while among her many friends and admirers, and immediately upon meeting Meg she apologized for missing our wedding five years ago (in fact, exactly five years ago today, which feels like one of her weird jokes). I didn't know what to say, since as far as I was concerned I was the one who had flaked out, not having really tried to stay in touch after I moved to NYC and the rest of my family went elsewhere... but unfortunately that's how I was with other extended family, too.

I'm now on a quest to track down video recordings of some of the plays she did in Ithaca, which I know will be weird to see now, but I have to. I remember as a young guy I felt a little confused and irritated about how she had stayed in regional theater, since even though I understood that that was a totally worthy pursuit, I thought she was meant to be really famous like Lily Tomlin or someone. But based on how she talked in the final minutes of her final performance, she was right where she wanted to be: that is, furiously second-guessing all of her choices and laughing at herself.

( some pictures )

Metamorphoses, written and directed by Mary Zimmerman after Ovid and others - seen on 3/16/19 at Berkeley Rep

It's hard to get a strong response to a story when most of the audience knows exactly what's going to happen. Or is it? In the kinds of stories adapted here, the storyteller often starts by saying in effect "You all know this one" and then goes on anyway, because it's all about how vividly it can be told. Though I don't know how much of Zimmerman's text is straight from Ovid, the parts that seem to be are lovely; but most of what makes this play so memorable isn't the language but the staging, which is usually about stripping things away rather than adding them, and finding efficient and surprising ways to convey an idea.
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Bunker, written by & starring Olivia Kingsley, directed by Willie Caldwell - seen on 1/31/19 at PianoFight

(disclaimer: I slightly know some of these people)

This isn't literally a solo show, but like many solo shows it's driven more by the actor's immersion in a distinctive character than by the story, and it's definitely a success in that regard; if I had to guess I'd say the author has had this person on her mind for quite a while. Deedee Darling is sort of a cross between Gwyneth Paltrow, Norma Desmond, and Howard Hughes: famous for something or other that's long forgotten, but now living off of licensing and endorsement deals, she swans around in a muumuu and an absurd Mid-Atlantic accent, eats peanut butter off her hand, and dictates statements about how she's decided to live in an underground bunker from now on. ( Read more... )

Up All Night by Nice Tan, seen on 1/27/19 at PianoFight for SF SketchFest

I pretty much expected this to go right over my head, for several reasons. It's a '90s nostalgia piece, by people who are probably about 15 years younger than me. It has a fair amount of African-American pop culture stuff that I barely know. And it's about middle-school girls having a sleepover, which isn't like anything I ever did unless you count a few times I played Dungeons & Dragons with some older kids. So this was never going to be the kind of personal delight for me that it was for a lot of the audience... but, whatever: Nice Tan is really good and this is a very funny show with a lot of heart.
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