"You're leaving so soon..."

So remember when I said a couple posts ago that I was leaving in January because that's when my program started? Yeah. I was wrong. I do start in October, so we can all set our clocks back straight. Six months to go!

"This is a lie..."

That title's a reference to the Cure, if anybody cares.

Katie--this one's for you. Mostly.

Okay, I want to take a moment and talk about narrative structure. Partly because the thing fascinates me so, and also because it came to mind the other day when thinking on older "Battlestar Galactica" episodes, and what they mean to teach us about this season.

This post will have nothing to do with grad school, I assure you, though it will talk about art in a way and so I'm going to scrape by posting it here on that justification. And furthermore, it will fulfill a dream of mine and one GreedyGreen's desire to discuss narrative structure over blog. We had hopped for video blogging, but that shit is just too frakking expensive. (And yes: I will be using "frak" to excess over the next few months. And no, I will not apologize.) So here's a poor man's version of what could be, of what may have been. You may not understand the example I give and the ponderings thereafter if you don't watch the show. Suck it up and start renting the DVDs.

Recently, a former high school cohort who is also a BSG fan reminded me of an episode where Leoben, a known Cylon, pulls Laura Roslin to him and whispers, "Adama's a Cylon," right before he's thrown out an airlock. This happened some time ago, and I had forgotten about it. But now, with a season geared towards the revealing of the final Cylon, the question lingers. Could Admiral William Adama, commander of the remaining Colonial Fleet and guardian of the human race as we know it on this show actually be Cylon? OR: did Leoben really mean Bill Adama at all? There are two known living Adamas: the admiral, and his son Lee (or as I refer to him, "The-hottest-of-the hot"). What if Lee Adama was the Adama Leoben was referring to? What would happen then? (For those not familiar with the series, I hope those links were useful.)

But both of these questions are based around the idea that Leoben was in fact stating a truth. The question remains: was it a Cylon trick, and a lie, or will some Adama eventually endanger the lifespan of the human race on the show? The problem with telling a lie in performance--the portrayal of lying, I should say, not bad acting which is occasionally referred to as "lying"--is that the audience usually needs to be in on it for it to be of any use as a plot device. You need that sense of dramatic irony to create tension that will help propel the play. Theatre is all about the relationship the piece has with the audience. Since we understand theatre can't exist without an audience (trust me on this one) we must appreciate the dependency therein, and even if we're trying to deeply offend our audience in some kind of theatre of cruelty situation, we must acknowledge that our efforts are useless without someone to subject that kind of cruelty on.

So: here we are with our audience. They're already in a state of suspended disbelief because they've come to watch something they know to be a play/movie/whathaveyou. They have to take what the performers give at face value. It's part of the agreement they make when they take their seat. Much drama centers around watching characters functioning in both public and private settings, the contradictions between the two being what is offered to the audience as the truth of those characters, and this is so often done that it is expected. We watch human drama because we want to know what's real, what it is to actually experience something like that, whatever the circumstances. We want all the nitty gritty shit shown to us, no excuses. So when a lie is introduced, it needs to eventually be verified for being one. The great part about Othello and Richard III is that the antagonists let the audience in on the joke; both Iago and Richard turn to the audience and pointblank tell them, "I'm going to really fuck things up for these people, just watch." The audience is allowed in, and so the lying is okay because the viewers are allowed to recognize it as a device. But when that access is denied, it's almost an act of bad faith on the part of the writer/performer. Remember that episode of "Dallas" where Patrick Duffy was discovered in the shower, still alive when he was supposed to have been dead, and the entire season that had taken place turned out to be a dream? I don't, I was too young--but I've heard tell of it. Such an action on a writer's part basically undercuts the entire journey they've taken the audience on. Unless the play was somehow a large discussion about deception, and that choice was made to show the audience that even they were vulnerable to it happening to them, it's just an asshole move. Period.

So I guess basically, getting back to BSG, I want Leoben to once and for all say that Adama, whichever one, is not a Cylon. Or see more examples of Cylons lying--which there have been many, but none recent enough to remind me what they're capable of (save the day-to-day existence on the Galactica of the four known of the Final Five...I guess there's a lot of deception there, too). If it is a lie. (And I venture to guess that it is.) And generally I'd like to see a good, solid piece of drama that may trick the audience into thinking they knew the answers, but then discovered they did not. Which is great drama, truly.

When am I getting a job with SciFi?

(Note: I did find an almost completely naked picture of Lee Adama on the web, but restrained myself from posting it here. This is a blog, not a smut show. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but the epic hotness of Jamie Bamber was bound to be just too frakking distracting for the likes of me, and I couldn't do it. Sorry guys.)

"After years of waiting nothing came/And you realize you're looking/Looking in the wrong place"

From May 2005 till about October 2007, I had been working on a project that was a fictional retelling/theatrical response of the story of Matthew Maupin, a US soldier who was captured during an ambush in Iraq in 2004. The director of the piece had come across an article dealing with Maupin about a year after his disappearance, and during the workshop of another, entirely different piece meant to meld modern discussions of torture and Ophelia from Hamlet (don't ask), themes about Maupin's story kept creeping in until we'd switched gears entirely and the whole thing became about him. The big, overlying detail of the piece was that Maupin was designated "Missing: Captured" and his real life family had continued to grieve and hold out hope for his return. The US government could not give these people any surety either way if their son was alive or dead. The family held on for literally years in some state of suspended grief, and just this past Sunday (3/30/08), word came out that his remains had been uncovered. Through DNA testing, they were able to identify whatever they found of him as him. This came about a week or so before the four year anniversary of his disappearance, an occasion that was going to be commemorated in the town he grew up in. Now they've commemorated something else.

It's taken me a week to sit down and blog about this, 1) Because I haven't had the time to actually blog about anything; and 2) Because I wasn't sure how to talk about this without getting too personal, which, as always, is something I seek to avoid in this forum. <--Perhaps, though, that is inevitable, as one of the novelties of blogging is an understanding that this is the author's take on whatever it is they're discussing, and that's just part of the form. But I'm still going to try to avoid it as best I can.

It's strange, this thing. If you know me well, you've probably inadvertently gone on this journey with me over the past couple-of-years-and-change, and you may know that I affectively left the piece in October (I tried to earlier, but it just didn't work out). So for me it was over, even though the play itself was seemingly not. But now Matt Maupin is dead. And so perhaps too is this journey, for real, not just because I left the show but because that question that kept it alive all those years, that same question that kept his family campaigning the US Government for information, "Where is Keith Matthew Maupin?" has been answered. It is a passing of a different kind, and I'm glad it's come.

I would not presume to say that my response or any sense of grieving I may feel about this happening is anywhere near the family's--that would be a flagrant lie, and truly a slap in the face to anyone that knew that individual and cared about him. There is also a sense of distance because one Must try to maintain some sense of objectiveness about the topic one is discussing on stage--it is the only way to produce well-rounded art that lends itself as a discussion, instead of a piece of stage propaganda. But something is definately over now, and I see it as another sign that tells me I'm ready to go.

Even if that journey doesn't start till January. Frak.

Aw, Frak.

The title is in honor of the premiere of the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica this evening. I'm having a party with food, friends, and fun prizes...and other things that begin with "f." What are YOU doing?

So after a brief discussion with my mother earlier this morning, it seems that my specific strand (the performers) don't actually start school till...January. So I'll be stateside a little longer that I thought, though still leaving New York in August. I blame this miscomunication on my start date (originally took it to be sometime in early October) to the vagueness of the paperwork I received from Central, and the additional illusory nature of hard solid information on their website. I'm reminded of something Dylan Moran says about talking to English people: "You don't know if they've recently died or just got married." This is the kind of vagueness I'm talking about people! A little help please!

This could speak about/to the fact that I've done little thus far to promote my journey over there: beginning of the saving of various monies, starting to pack, buying a new British-appropriate wardrobe, filling out my FASA...details, details, details...

But now the question is: What the frak am I going to do during my new "swing" period? Go home to Jersey and teach yoga? It just might happen, but I'm open to suggestions.

But enough of this. There are more pressing matters at hand. Like: Is Starbuck a Cylon?

(I say "No!")

NY Event Number Two: Riding between cars on the 1 train to see the abandoned 93rd St. station.

So this was awesome, and if I could (given that it suddenly became legal and less dangerous {though that'd probably ruin the fun of it}) I would ride between cars all the time. No pictures I'm afraid.

Heidi and I finally went out for a celebratory dinner in honor of our grad school acceptance at French Roast, about a month-to-the-day after our auditions/interviews. On the way home, drunk enough on Argentinian wine to have the courage and care to bother, we did as KCruger recommended and rode between cars on the 1 train between the 86th St. and 96th St. stations to see the abandoned 93rd St. one. It should also be noted that after we saw it, we got seats in the car we moved into, which is some kind of triumph.

It's such an ominous word: abandoned. <--and didn't that font choice make it more so? Makes one think of ghost towns, and what's left behind that no one talks about but silently acknowledges. The station was closed because it was too close to the 96th St. station, and I guess the city couldn't justify the cost of having two stations in such proximity to one another. The walls are covered with graffiti to the point it almost camouflages it--there's a LOT of graffiti along that train line, more than most I venture to say. Having ridden the 1 train constantly over the past two years, I never noticed the station before. It was nice to discover something brand new about my commute, and to be reminded that there are still things you might miss even if you know something really well. I look forward to more discoveries about the city like this, though I don't know if I have the balls to follow Emma's advice to dash across the tracks somewhere in Brooklyn. We'll see. It might take something harder than Argentina has to offer.