Talking With...

[fajrdrako]

When I tell people I work in a theatre, they often ask me if it means I get tickets to plays for free. Nope. But I do, sometimes, go to dress rehearsals.

Today I got to see a play for free. A first!

It wasn't one of our plays, it was put on by Canplay, which is professional, and it's called Talking With. It hasn't quite opened yet. They were doing a full run-through, with costumes and make-up and all, and it was their first work with the cellist who is doing the music bridging the scenes.

The play is a series of monologues by eleven women, each of them different. I wasn't able to pick out a theme except, perhaps, "different views of the world". One woman is a snake-handler, one associates memories with light, one talks about her mother's death, one fantasizes about Oz, one is a rodeo performer. All are distinctly American, which for some reason surprised me - I'd erroneously thought when I first heard about it that this was a Canadian play.

I enjoyed it very much. But, oddly, there wasn't one of the women I could really identify with. Eleven very different types with eleven different themes on their minds, and none of them my themes, or lives like my life. Which was maybe what it was all about: the diversity of identity, the strangeness of experiences in life.

My favourite was possible the last one, a woman who expresses experience with the marks on her body - scars and tattoos. I also liked the one about a woman in labour with a dragon-baby. Really, they were all good.

One vignette involves a snake named Charles. I got to meet Charles yesterday, after lingering hopefully a few days around the doors of the rehearsal hall, where they always seemed to be busy in rehearsal or the snake wasn't there. I opened the door for his owner one day, but she wouldn't open the box - she didn't want to disturb him. Very protective. Well, I suppose he's a star.

Then yesterday as I was walking into the Green Room, I collided with her, and Charles the snake, and got to meet him. He's a beautiful corn snake, a spotted rich brown colour. Beautiful.

There's also a cute kitten in the play - adorable, at that age where they're all fluff and legs and curiosity and no sense at all - and the skit is about the owner threatening to kill it with a hammer. Huh.

Comments

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

I know that play! I was on the production crew for it in college, which meant I got to hear those monologues done *a lot*. I think my favorite one is the woman marked by life, who now cuts people (am I remembering that correctly)?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh, how cool that you know it, and worked on it! Yes, the woman who was 'marked' was the one I liked best too - and yes, you remember rightly, she now cuts people as she was cut, because it was such a meaningful moment in her previously untouched life.

Seems to me it would be a good college play - the set is simple, the text is interesting, there's scope in the acting.

[norwich36.livejournal.com]

Yes, as I recall (this was 19 years ago--good grief, calculating that number makes me feel old!) it was very easy to stage and had minimal sets. And I'm amazed that monologue has stayed with me so long.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

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<i.I'm amazed that monologue has stayed with me so long.</i>

I think it shows that while each monologue was brief, they were really quite strong stories with powerful images. I don't think I'll be forgetting them any time soon - I'm sure images from it will be coming back to me. The woman producing it, Barbara Crook, said she did so because of the impression made on her by a production of the show from 1985 - obviously it stayed with her for twenty years.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

I had a friend play the snake-handler in that play in college. Interesting play.