Just as the year is drawing to a close the interest in setting productions for next year begins wake up. After the endless looking and re-looking at the calander and the survey of time, people and money – – it is time to put some show titles on the calander.
The plays I choose go on a fairly predictable cycle. One year the absurdist/experimental work, one year the blood and guts drama, one year the total cotton-candy silliness of a Feydeau farce. I had my Metamorphoses. I had my Shadow Box – and now I am ready for my Feydeau silliness. I liken it to having a bit of a bizzare appetizer (experimental theatre), a hearty meal (realistic drama) and now’s the time for dessert!
This farce is going to cause me to look at an entire different slice of our department. First off I have to remove all of the current seniors from my vision (and THAT’s tough) and then I have to imagine what a summer’s worth of living is going to do to the acting pool that remains. Finally, I find myself walking around the halls trying to see if the various class clowns are up for the challenge of a french farce. It is one thing to be the funny guy in class, it is one thing to be thought as the funniest guy in your gang, but it is an entirely different calling to be ready for the frantic, muscled dance of French farce.
As I am beginning to assemble my script – my dream script – as I describe in earlier blogs, I want to imagine faces as I read the play over and over. It is as if I want to take a crate full of banana skins, whoopee cushions, buckets of water, and long awkward ladders and strew them thought the halls and sit back and watch the crazy. I know there WOULD be crazy. BUT is it the kind of crazy that I can harness? There’s the question. Pick up a big ladder and start spinning it in a hall full of people and doors. Might work – – probably need to see the dean first for all of the liability issues – but, come on, it’s the end of the year. Would anyone really notice?