what will the war do with these jigging fools?
as originally proposed, the first show of julius caesar was last night, and went pretty well except that part of my role as narrator / guardian involves meeting the audience in a train station and walking them to the space, and as anyone who knows me IN REAL LIFE could tell you, my map skills are… curious? lacking? selective? what i’m saying is, we, meaning a group of 120 people plus me in corpse paint, got lost. but in the words of the immortal bard, “it’s cool”.
my part is pretty good, because i wrote it good, with lots of good spiels and a comedy smoking routine (NB: i only smoke in a comedy setting, or after a birth (cigars) or during a delivery (cigarettes, waiting room)). also in a funny twist, my decision to pronounce “pompey” as “POMP ee” rather than “pomp AYY” has been ratified by metrical analysis. AYYYYYYYY!
philadelphia seems nice although mostly i just get ready for the play, or walk around chinatown looking for vietnamese coffee, or eat breakfast, or be asleep. probably going to cough up the $14 to go to the art museum, where there’s a big picasso in paris exhibit, and they have that great cy twombly’s the odyssey room, and more to the point, that’s where they got those duchamps. i feel like seeing “the originals” is more than a bit of a farce in duchamp’s case, but also, what am i gonna not go? i’m right here.
Where in Philly are you performing?
Spent some time wandering Philly earlier this year and tracked down the gallery where I helped promote tons of shows in the 90s. It now seems to be a private artist work space or something. Kind of a shock.
i thought cy twombly was a joker until i checked out that room. it really flipped me out and now i love the guy. worth the price of admission.
(the time i went was also a big barnett newman retrospective and i got to see “Vir Heroicus Sublimis” which was actually SMALLER than the jpegs lead me to believe it would be!)
jacob, I’m pretty sure the art museum there is free on sunday mornings… or at least one day every month. there’s gotta be a way to get in there for less than $14. good luck! have fun!
mike- the exact address is a secret and will remain so until the end of the play, but the audience meets at the vine st subway station and the place is a five minute walk, so somewhere in the vicinity of chinatown.
kev- same story! i knew and liked cy twombly enough, and i had him placed in a buddy circle with two other jokers i already liked, (rauchemberg and jasper johns), and i knew that he went to rome to study, which added an added sincerity to his practice, but yeah, until i saw that room i thought his whole shtick was a bit of a piss take. which i liked, but now: fully into it.
jean claude- i thought “every sunday” but the website has (in red) “first sunday of the month”. also it’s not like the Met where it says “suggested donation” really small under “$14″ and you can just boldly place a button in the tray like thanks. anyway i’m saving money on an unexpected ride home, so some funds are freed up, i think i’ll just bite it.