Author: carlaching

Angeleno, teaching artist, playwright and TV writer, Kilroy, New Dramatist

Desire Under the Elms and American Hwangap

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I was very disappointed to hear that Desire Under the Elms is closing early.  I thought that the first 5 minutes, with two brothers doing hard farm work, hauling stones, gutting a pig, while stones were hung perilously all around them, was one of the more exciting, visceral theatrical experiences I’ve seen in awhile.  I got discount tickets to see it with my sister during previews.  If you can get cheap tickets, I say it’s worth the coin.

But, definitely don’t miss Lloyd Suh’s American Hwangap, at the Wild Project right now.  Like, go right now.

Oxtail Soup

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I have been working on a play where one character is making ramen in the kitchen.  Another fellow walks in and they start talking about the soup and what makes a good soup.  What goes into it.

I want to model this soup off the broth of a beloved New York noodle shop and scoured the web looking for the broth recipe.  Nowhere that I can find.  I am bummed because I can’t finish the scene until I get the soup right.

I finally found this recipe for oxtail soup which he was willing to give away.  My mom used to make a soup like this when I was growing up except she put peanuts in hers (Chinese style) and she cooked it in the pressure cooker.  It was one of my dad’s favorite things.  But, I wouldn’t eat it because it was, well, an ox tail and it freaked me out.

Now, I am a vegetarian of 17 years so I’ll probably never know what it tastes like.

But the characters in my play do.  And it’s delicious.

I miss L.A.

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Have you seen Dogtown and Z-boys?

I have lived in NYC since 1996 and there are a rare few things that make me miss Los Angeles.

This movie made me miss it.

It’s a vibe.  A wildness.  White hot sun and dirty streets.  It’s a particular kind of rebellion which birthed the Zephyr crew who took surf moves to concrete and brought skateboarding out of obscurity and party-trick-land onto the streets.  Out of a wasteland, these guys made art.  The youngest member of the crew, Jay Adams, was 13.  I was inspired, but I also wondered what it is that causes great rumblings, causes people to build something where no one else will.

Know what I mean?

Imagination

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In an interesting confluence of events:

I saw Crystal Skillman’s reading of The Sleeping World at Rattlestick this week, on the set of That Pretty Pretty with one of the actors from That Pretty Pretty in it.  So, I was watching this deep, sad, funny play about four friends coming together to read the unfinished play of their friend who took his own life the year before.  But at the beginning, I show up and I’m in  the hotel room from That Pretty Pretty.

And the ghost of Jane Fonda was in the air.  And I’m half waiting for jello wrestling to begin.  But, the actors are insistent, Crystal’s words are good, and I am lucky enough to have seen a lot of plays, so I know that this is the part where I turn on my imagination.  And so I close my eyes and shift my brain and the hotel room melts away and instead, we’re in The Sleeping World.  On a cold, snowy night at New Dramatists. And I’m in the world of the play.  And I’ll follow them anywhere.

I had to ask my students to do this today as well.  We brought a performance to their school.  There was but a stool, a desk, a chair, one costume piece and a pair of shoes.  And they had to believe we are in Chicago, on Mango Street and Esperanza is about to share her journal and her dreams with us.

https://i0.wp.com/upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ec/MangoStreet.jpg

They did pretty well for the first theatrical performance for some of them.  They were a little squirmy.  I think they found it challenging to sit for more than an hour and focus.

The beauty of theater is that it can happen anywhere.  With very little.  But what we ask of our audiences is hard.  To be in the moment.  To imagine.  To believe.  But, when all the magic is in order, we are all there, imagining, together.

I am trying to figure out how to make it easier for people that aren’t regular theater goers.  Children and adults.  How do we get them to lean in and believe?