Monday, March 09, 2015

local theat-ah

I saw a play at UC Davis and it made me a bit depressed about local theater. It was a guest director who has directed at BAM and Lincoln Center, among other places, so I guess the bar is pretty high. The staging, including a scrim with film projected, was mind-blowing. They were student actors so the performances varied in quality, but it was the performances of two male actors in their 50s that really drew a line for me between what they were doing and most local performances. One big thing was that their accents were so good. I have come to dread any local production with accents. They are so labored as to be very distracting. These actors were just so comfortable and natural. This was a much bigger theater than Cap Stage, Big Idea and B street so that brings limitations to their staging but still. It doesn't help that in the last Cap Stage play I saw the actors were really struggling with their rhythm and lines, which is not normal. It sucked because I really liked the actual play. In the case of Woyzec (which is the UCD one - adapted by Neil Labute) the play was befuddling.

Staying off social media today for the whole day! Planning to check it once around 4. I am pretty addicted and now I bought an ipad so it's one more device for me to be on with fingertip access to all of it. And I started tweeting again recently so another time-waster. It drives me nuts. I really would get off facebook if I didn't have heckarap to shill. I don't know if we're ever in danger of getting the night canceled since attendance is sparse and I guess that would be a blessing in disguise. It provides amusement for sure, and connection, but I follow so many feeds that if I don't check it for a day it can take a half hour or more to check it. Between checking time, taking photos, listening to music, texting a lot, etc. sometimes I reach for my phone every few seconds. It sucks.

7 comments:

beckler said...

Crickets....

I'm trying a new insomnia strategy which is to just go to bed when I feel like it. Just as an experiment. I am always trying to force myself to sleep when I'm not tired because I have to get up around 6:30. But for instance I got about 6 hours of sleep because of the time change and I feel fine. So maybe I can do that for a few days and then have one day I make sure I get 8-9 hours and just have the bonus of extra hours in the day. Who knows?! Exciting.

Scott Miller said...

I hope some headphones for that ipad are part of the insomnia strategy!

Cody said...

I’ve been struggling with social media/phone use lately too. It’s a good way to pass time, but it also brings so much unnecessary stuff with it. Like it’s pretty dumb that there are people I actually really like who I get annoyed with on social media and it affects the way I interact with them in “real life.” I kind of wish the internet stayed how it was in like, 1999, so I could still, you know, talk to people about the X-Files and learn about music I had no idea existed, but wouldn’t be tempted to take out my phone and look up every person/place that’s mentioned in a non-fiction book on Wikipedia. I know that’s more my problem than the internet's, but I never had those impulses before it was so easy to access every minute piece of trivia ever.

Then again if it wasn’t for Facebook I wouldn’t know that DB loves Chappie, and dancing robots in general, so I guess it’s a zero sum game.

DaveNinja said...

I'm glad that facebook exists so i know someone out there likes Chappie. I havent seen the movie but i want it to be good.

The best thing about getting used to ~6hrs of sleep at night is on the weekends you only need like 7 hours of sleep to feel like you've slept in. 7am and time to start the party!

beckler said...

I forgot I could use headphones (to watch Empire)! Strategy will be adopted tonight possibly.

It's true, even if the only good thing I had gotten out of the internet is the question of whether I would rather be trapped in hell with Chappie or Johnny 5 it would all be worth it (example of fb conversation Smiller is missing out on - sorry!)

I was just writing a safety talk entitled "is sitting the new smoking" and it led me to install a pedometer app on my phone so now I will have to actually have it on my body permanently, possibly implanted into a pouch in my FUPA (now would we know about FUPAs without the internet? = worth it)

true story: I tried to find a Garfield strip about sitting to include in my talk #grownasswoman (I would never have known about hashtags either). There is a book called Garfield Sits Around The House but the cover was not funny enough to include. I intend to slay 'em at the talk.

Jesus enough with the Amber alert! My work phone has gone off three times!

beckler said...

I'm not sure my comment makes 100% because of typos and weird use of hashtags. Also: TLDR

beckler said...
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