Rainy Days and Wednesdays - 3/8/06

Pella, IA - Two rainy days have produced little to do except blog. Yesterday I took a walk to downtown Pella, sat at Smoky Row coffee house with Daniel, went to campus for lunch, and then the heavens opened up with rain. So in essence I got stuck on campus. Fortunately the student center cafe had a TV, so I picked up the World Baseball Classic. Saw the Dominican Republic beat Venezuela and USA beat Mexico. Dinner, R3 and bed essentially finished up yesterday.

Today it started raining again in the AM. My only agenda had been to go downtown and take the pictures I couldn't take yesterday, but with the rain I sat it out. Right at this very moment the rain has let up, but I ended up watching the Syracuse-Cinncinati basketball game with Tyler, my roommate here in Pella (who's also got nothing to do but blog). We are both Syracuse fans; remarkably, he's been following the Orange since he was a kid growing up in Syracuse and going to high school right near the campus. I've been an Orange fan since my days in Oswego, so it made for a good match. I should have gone on the hotel treadmill in the morning, but did not. Syracuse won an exciting game with 0.5 seconds left on a walking 3-point shot by senior Gerry McNamara. Now I have the WBC on again; Panama v. Cuba, with USA v. Canada up next at 3:00. Andrew came down to the room, so I gave my camera to Sarah and she will take photos of downtown for you to see. It really is a cute downtown, with the new mixed nicely into the old. There is a very nicely done mini-mall in the center of town, an historical village, the nearby Red Rocks dam area for recreation. I have it marked in my mind as a place to return for a small vacation while traveling someday. Places like these are also retirement possibilities; small town with tourist appeal, small college to teach some adjunct courses, probably nice houses for little money and low taxes. Not for awhile, though.

The shows have been taking a beating lately, it seems. Carie has been less than satisfied with our latest efforts. I have been trying to find some new wrinkles in my characters to breathe some new life in them (and fight the boredom), but apparently it's coming out as "unfocused." Personally, while onstage I do not sense any lack of of effort by anyone, so it's a bit hard to see where this lack of focus is, because nothing specific is being mentioned. Yes, we are tired; yes, we have done these shows for a long time; but without some specific notations I am not sure how to proceed. I know in R3 last night I tried some new approaches based on the space (more intimate approaches to vocal work, more of a sense as Hastings that I do suspect something is up after my scene with Catesby, more of a "thug" character for my citizen in the battlement scene, more of a "quiet, slow strength" for Oxford in terms of physical movement) to see if I could find new wrinkles in each character; perhaps that experimentation appears as "unfocused" in some way. And even though the show last night came in on time at 2:05, it seemed "slow." There are always so many factors to take into account when you travel to so many venues, play in such different spaces from day to day, have such different audience responses from venue to venue, that it's often difficult to find the true cause of why any particular performance might not be up to snuff. Chatting with people at the merchandise table led me to believe the non-students last night enjoyed the show; three people came up to Jessica to congratulate her work on Margaret. But today, it seems resting in the room and taking it easy might be the best way for me to have a very focused show with Planet tonight and then get a good R3 in at Platteville before our "break."

We are getting an unintended long break in Platteville, because the high school performance I helped to secure at Platteville HS has fallen through. The principal felt he had to cancel after his faculty told him they had too many tests scheduled on Friday, which is the last day before their spring break. So we may do a workshop at the college on Friday, but no show. The company will move to Madison for the duration until Monday, when we travel to Waverly IA, but I will be staying in Platteville with good friends from my days at Wisconsin Shakes. A home environment, good friends, good food, Leinenkugel beer and hot tub - I could do worse. -TWL