Ubu Roi opened last night. The play was written by French Absurdist Alfred Jarry. In a sense it's a lampoon on MacBeth, but also deals with the politics and religion of the late 1800's, the period during which Poland ceased to be a country. At its first preformance, the play caused riots in the theatre and in the streets, not only because it was something the French had never encountered before, but because in the original French, the opening line is "Merdre!" Shit.
What a great show, wouldn't you say? Wouldn't this show make an interesting parallel between the problems of that time period and the current political and social problems? Yeah, well, our director has turned it into a children's show. The actors are costumed as clowns and the whole thing is in the style of a circus full of lazzis and other Harlequin-esque behaviour. Great hunks of the show have been cut as have just about all referances to politics, religion and social groups, not to mention the language. There is a Mission Impossible sequence, there are Botox jokes, need we say more?
In a few ways, it is a fun show. Is it Ubu Roi? No. Scott, the director and Nick, one of the actors, have gone so far as to place their names on the programme as those responsible for the adaptation, but if that was what they had to do to make the show what Scott wanted, why couldn't he find a different show to direct in the first place?
In addition to the play itself, there is a preshow "circus", if you will. In the lobby there are three circus games- Fishing, Pick-A-Duck, and Bean Bag Toss. For just a quarter, you too can play the games and mingle with the cast who juggle, do magic, and various other clownly things. It's set up for kids, really. Last night there were no children in the audience younger than 18. The eldest children were closer to the age of 60. Still, it seems you can get geriatrics to pay a quarter to win a goggle-eyed bug keychain or a pirate tattoo.
I got worried about House Managing. I shouldn't have but I got rattled because it was a lot to get done in a short amount of time and I had a lot of other things on my mind.
All afternoon Nathan kept twitting me about David who works in the Box Office and he's also in my Directing scene. Nathan decided I ought to break up with him and go out with David because he's funnier and more interesting and a whole bunch of rediculous things. David's my friend, and we work together, I neither have nor desire any other relationship with him. I know Nathan can get jealous because 95% of his other girlfriends have dumped him, but I couldn't handle it anymore. I snapped at him, which I've never done before, and he took it too hard and got mad at me in return.
This was all half an hour before I had to work, but when this stuff happens it can never be instantly resolved. He gets upset, stays that way for a few hours, and then everything's just fine again, as far as he's concerned. Unfortunately, I desire closure, and I'm never certain whether I get it or not, so I spent the whole show worrying whether or not everything could be OK again.
In the end, everything was, he decided he shouldn't have gotten mad at me, and I apologised for getting upset with him and everything was good by bedtime. What a totally bizarre way to argue, but it's as close as we get to it.
Having mentioned David, I did have to find a new actress for my Midsummer scene. I asked Stacie from the Box Office to do it for me, and so that's all well. We have another rehearsal tomorrow morning before the two Ubu shows. See how that goes.