Familiar territory

Right back where I often am this time of year:  wondering what to write next.  So we can expect to get more frequent blog posts just to keep the writing muscles honed as much as possible.

So far this year has been fairly productive I'd say.  It was a lot of fun adapting The Craftsman to a play and solving the problem inherent in a transfer from screenplay to stage.  And having the platform for a reading with 'civilians' in the room reacting to it from afresh was very helpful as well.

I'm proud of the play and welcome it to my stable of submittable material . . . when I become an overnight sensation there will be no shortage of material!

But now what?  I've recently submitted both The Craftsman and The Brother of the End of the World to various places, and will continue to do so (and other stuff as well).  The flint will eventually hit the steel and create the spark but for now I'm refilling the cistern, so to speak.

We went to see a less than perfect Long Days Journey Into Night at BAM last night.  It is a wonderful play, but this production wasn't firing on all cylinders.  Jeremy Irons was fine as James Tyrone, and Leslie Manville was an adequate Mary, though when she makes her entrance at the end of the play she wasn't that much crazier than she was earlier, which sort of diminishes the impact to say the least.

Neither of the actors playing the two sons caught my fancy.  The actor playing Edmund was not well cast at all, seemed to be in a different play at times, and the actor playing Jamie, while he had his moments, really dropped the ball in his big scene with his younger brother in the second act.  Any time I see this play it'll be haunted by Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance on Broadway.  His meltdown in that scene was a sight to behold, and this guy didn't even come close.

Oh well . . . nobody's perfect.  We have seen in recent weeks a wonderful Lear, with Antony Sher, and Three Tall Women, which was astounding so I guess that's a pretty good track record.

Now we're going to lay back a bit, we are saving shekels for Italy of course but a couple of things on the horizon are interesting:  a Japanese production of Macbeth in July and The Ferryman opening on Broadway in Oct.  But for now we can relax a bit.  The only things on the horizon are concerts, unless something strikes our fancy.