On the Dark Side of Twilight: Fairview Park Public Library

Ten years ago, Great Lakes Theater produced my first outreach tour "On the Dark Side of Twilight."

Vampire book display!

Monday, March 1, 2010

"This is a very old table."

That is what I said before launching into the second arc. After being attacked, Young Porlock hit the table, as usual, and the same leg that busted yesterday collapsed. The books and everything hit the floor. Lord Darvell did not even deign to look at the destruction. Hang Poor Porlock, bleeding on the divan, he had crushed our beloved table, and there was nothing to be done.

The Narrator brought out the sound case, and put the table onto that. It was too important to simply haul off-stage. There was too much at stake.

Get it? Get it?

The major piece of the table I restored yesterday is still stuck firm, but that leg ... I have reattached it with wood glue and the clamp (which had been relocated for the larger damage and then set aside) and it may see another performance.

The crowd at Fairview was very nice, though strangely low on Twilight fans. I mean, I was really surprised. But the folks there have always been very supportive and the turnout was high.

Margaret led her first post-show discussion tonight, and it was really great. It went into some new places, especially into the sanguine. It is so weird that Bella (in the novel Twilight) describes Edward's breath as smelling sweet. He eats blood, that is his diet. It doesn't matter that it is animal blood. Have you ever been hit in the face? Had dental surgery? Have you ever had am amount of blood sit in your mouth? You know how it tastes? How it smells? Now imagine that is what you eat. Stoker nailed it with his description of Dracula's personal hygiene. Sweet his breath was not.

A woman came up after and asked me about Kent State. She wasn't critical, she just wanted to know why The Interview has references to historical events in the way the other three do not. None of these events are mentioned by name, not specifically. But if it weren't obvious, she was struck by the reference to "13 Seconds." I did not know that was a book, I just knew it was a fact.

Setting up and striking, Emily treated us to the weirdest mix CD I have ever heard. She's big into Wicked, apparently. And Newsies.

An observation: How much did Margaret Hamilton owe her performance as the Wicked Witch to Max Shreck? Hamilton is diminutive, to be sure, I am not sure she was even taller than Judy Garland. And while everything around her is brightly colored (including her own green face) she is dressed all in black, a black which light seems to fall into. So she creates these silhouettes with her joints; her elbows, her shoulders, making shadows against the background, with those long fingers, jutting UP into Dorothy's face.

Well. It's obvious, isn't it?

UPDATE: Margaret Hamilton, at 5' even, was in fact taller than the 4'11" Judy Garland.

Styles: Fairview Park Public Library

When all is said and done, I have to go back and read this novel again. I want to know how Hastings comes across to me now, how much of my impression of his is influenced by the adaptation I made, how much by James' performance, how much is pure Christie.

As received in both Styles and Curtain (the only two Hastings novels I have read) Hastings may come off as slow off the mark, but more stiff than he is in this production. Perhaps his age is supposed to be in his mid-to-late twenties. Here he is early twenties. And James has been encouraged to be energetic and engaging, in a way that may not match the book.

Hastings is excited by the prospect of solving a crime. James is visibly excited. Hastings does attempt flirtations with both Cynthia and Mary in the novel, here they happen virtually one right after the other that it seems perhaps thoughtless ... but he is a young man! This is all very romantic to him. And his romantic nature is a point of description in the stories. In Curtain, as an old man, he is particularly dreary and wistful. In our production, he is the eternal optimist.

He also changes things up a lot. In his absence, if there were some way that Poirot were introduced to the case without Hastings there (it is Hastings who brings Poirot into the proceedings, and immediately after the crime) things would not have been nearly as interesting. He's not just a person that Poirot can confide in, to share this information with the audience, even if I thought at first he might be only that. There is a generous back and forth, and it shapes Poirot's thoughts and actions.

In spite of his upbringing, Hastings is a catalyst for change. Poirot, on the other hand, is a stickler for the status quo. The "happiness between one man and one woman" Poirot speaks of before departing, I think Michael summed it up best just as I stepped off-stage tonight.

"Well," he whispered to me, "... happiness for the one man, anyway."

We performed at Fairview Park Public Library tonight, another capacity crowd with a lively discussion following. Kristy Lee was present, she of last year's Decameron tour, and with her Brian who is one of our actor-teachers. There were a lot of family and friends, too.

One gentleman pointed out, correctly, that if Hastings were always in uniform, everyone would be calling him Captain Hastings, and not Mister. My explanation is that this is a memory play, framed by the confidence in which Hastings takes his audience. He is remembering himself at that time, from what he later reveals to be decades later. No doubt he was not in uniform at Styles Court, he was vacationing. But in his mind, he was. I don't know if that was Esther's idea or not in choosing that costume, but it's the one I have kept with me and I like it.