Goodbye to LOST

Now, I'm not one to post spoilers; I always make sure that the person I'm talking with has seen as many episodes as I have. But I'm sure many of you know that half the people who saw the series finale of LOST loved it and the other half hated it. I'm with those who loved it.

It made me giddy, it made me weepy, and the ending made me go "huh?" for a second. Then it sat with me, and I said, "oh." A couple of seconds later I said, "OH!" I got it! And it really tied the series in a nice bow for me.

A lot of people, it seems, hates LOST and its fans. I really wish these people could just sit down and watch it. Never has a television series been more moving or more thought-provoking. I seriously thought that the last episode would be the end for me, but now I know that this television show is going to sit with me for years to come. I will definitely want to revisit it.

It also got me to thinking about how some people think there are inferior media for art, television being one of the lowest. This is probably based on a lot of the dribble that gets produced for it (I'm looking at you, Family Guy!), but I think that shows the limitations of the artist, not the medium. And LOST proved that.

I'm still thinking "Holy shit! You can do that on television???"

Beard Update: 6 Weeks and then a trim.

Look at this schmuck! 6 weeks have gone by and it's time to shape this thing.



Okay, so I enhanced the beard with brown mascara, because I'll be allowed to do that onstage. A lot of my hairs come in blond. But seriously, now, i look straight out of a Rembrandt painting now!

An Excursion with Paul

So I decided that I should write my new version of R & J by hand because notebooks don't have the internet. And by notebooks, I mean the older sense of the word: pieces of lined paper bound together. So I went to town to get myself one and a paperback copy of Romeo & Juliet.

It was really cold outside, but it doesn't seem right to me to take a car to town, so I put on a scarf and gloves to ride my bike to town. It's so weird to have this kind of weather in May.

After buying my necessary supplies, I decided to sit in Amherst Coffee with a cup of tea and look busy. Hopefully someone I knew would see me and realize I was up to something important, but then would decide to interrupt me anyway because they know I'm not too pretentious to leave my work for a second to say "hello" to a friend. Well, I did see my old French TA, but she was leaving as I was coming. She's so cool.

I'm really having fun with this piece, but I couldn't stay in the cafe all day. I like taking my tea outside, actually, but seriously, it feels more like March than May outside. So I decided to walk back to my bike and go home.

Along the way, I saw a man leave the old location of Bart's Ice Cream Parlor, which has been closed up all winter. Rumor has it, it went out of business.

"Excuse me," I said to the man. "Could you tell me what's being done with this place?"

"Oh, it's just being renovated."

"For a new business?"

"No, just Bart's. New owner, same business."

:-)

I visited the grave of Emily Dickinson before returning to my bike. There was a woman there taking pictures. And just staring. Perhaps I take the fact that we have a very famous dead poet for granted, but I often just stop to say "hello" and then go on my way. I felt that maybe she would like to be left alone with the dead.

Vamping up an Old Romance

So, my creative side won't shut up. There's a project that I must see all the way through to the end. This idea has been bouncing in my head and I suggested it to others with mixed reactions. Today, I officially set my pen down to writing Vampire and Werewolf Romeo & Juliet.

I am so pleased that William Shakespeare himself will be posthumously collaborating with me on this one.

I will propose it as a fundraising event for Hampshire Shakespeare Company, but if they don't like it, I'm just going to have to stage it myself. This will go up this coming fall! Mark my words!

Audition

Today I had my first movie audition since high school. It was for a no-budget horror movie company based in Easthampton.

It would be pretty awesome to surprise people by playing a killer. Also, all my experience has been on the stage, so to add "film acting" to my resume would be great.

Beard Update: 4 Weeks

I've decided two things:

One is that a beard update should come in whole numbers of weeks from the last time I shaved, which was on Saturday the 3rd of April.

Another is that my beard doesn't change that much in just one week, so these will come two weeks after each other... after this post of course.


The reason I look so tired in this pic is that I had a breakfast and dinner shift both yesterday and the day before it. I prefer schedules that allow me eight hours of sleep, but this was a special case scenario.

In conclusion, I may not look like Gustave Courbert in his famous self-portrait, but I certainly feel like him:

Dutch Tastes

This might just be the grain that tips the scales. I'm gonna have to leave this valley centered around Amherst. There's nothing I, a non-intellectual, can do here. It's like being a fisher in a mining community.

So, I'm looking around and Chicago might just be the place I move in about a year once I raise enough capital. I think it's pretty groovy that it actually has a restaurant for Dutch pancakes, which are like crepes, except that they have goodies embedded in the batter!

I remember those (pannenkoeken) were always the pancakes my dad would make for me. I was introduced to flapjacks (American) at a later date. I thought they were too thick and spongey for my taste. I have since learned to like them, but not as much as pannenkoeken.

The Dutch like to put chocolate sprinkles on their bread. They use butter to make it stick.

The Dutch also like to put peanut butter on their bread. Now the logical conclusion is that it's okay to use peanut butter to make the chocolate sprinkles stick, but do that, and you're just an eccentric.

My dad first did this when he was younger, and my grandfather thought it was excessive. Anyway, the tradition was passed down to me.

One of the most decadent things one can do is eat peanut butter with a spoon. I like to one up my non-Dutch friends by adding a little Dutch chocolate garnish to each spoonful. Two great tastes that taste great together, plus it has a little crunch. I would recommend sticking to creamy and not chunky peanut butter if you are going to attempt this.

Nobody in America seems to like the salty black licorice the Dutch love. Well, one of my friends does, but he's weird. Whenever I go to Holland, I try to get stroopwafels for my friends.

Stroopwafels are made of two thin wafers with a gooey syrup in the middle that hardens. Best thing to do is place it over a steaming cup of coffee to soften it up.

I think the Dutch like marzipan, too. I like marzipan. If I ever get married (hopefully not anytime soon), I'd like a marzipan wedding cake. And an espresso machine for a wedding gift.

Beard Update

Yes. This is all my face could muster in three and a half weeks. I still see new sproutlings every week, so it may be a full 'stache and goatee by June 30, the premier night of Hamlet. No, the two entities do not connect.

A Very Awesome Birthday

Last week was a very awesome birthday. There were several elements that made it so. For one, my tax refund finally came in the mail (it's all going to my car, by the way), I ate Mexican food with my brother at Mama Iguana's, but best of all was my first rehearsal for Hamlet.

Most people would be bummed to have a rehearsal on their birthday, or so I'm told. I relished the idea. I've spent too many years (about two not counting that fundraising gig I had in February) off the stage, so this was a nice gift.

Tina, the stage manager, knew it was my birthday and surprised me with cupcakes and candles!!! It was amazing and delicious.

Also, the scene we were practicing is a real challenge. The whole part is. It's not the biggest part I've ever accepted, but it's definitely the most challenging. In this scene, I go from distrusting King Claudius, to trusting him, to mourning my sister's death. That's quite an emotional roller coaster for one scene. I'm excited for it, though. I hope this part will help me grow as an actor.

At the end, though, I was very sad about the events of that scene, so I stuffed my face with a chocolate cupcake. Chocolate frosting actually helps darken my mustache, so perhaps I should do that before every performance.

When I got home, my mom gave me a gift that finally arrived in the mail: A shiny rapier. I'm gonna have so much fun practicing my fight scenes!

Devilishly Good Entertainment

Today, I saw an incredible staging of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. It was at the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Arts, set in a small black room in their big barn. The setting was nice and intimate.

I think the most most mind-blowing casting was for Mephistopheles, a strong woman with a deep voice named Diedre Devere Bollinger. Her costume was very masculine, complete with a strap-on bulge between her legs. When he (the character Mephistopheles) surrenders his sword to Doctor Faustus, I could not help but think this was castration. But the scene went further when Faustus asks Mephistopheles for a wife. Mephistopheles strips himself of the heavy padding on his chest to reveal a woman's torso in a black shirt and then strips himself of the bulge in between his legs.

It added something tragic to Mephistopheles enslaving himself to Faustus. In doing so, he emasculates himself, and by the end, I could not think of him as either a complete man or a complete woman. Just a shattered being, which I guess is what a fallen angel is.

I confessed to her after the show that I was almost scared to congratulate her because she frightened me so much. She played the demonic part very well but nevertheless played the human element very well, too. Her sorrow was very evident at having been thrown from Heaven along with Lucifer.

Matt Roehrig played a very sympathetic, and of course pompous, Doctor Faustus. He had an unwavering sincerity that added warmth to a part that seemed cold to me on paper (I read this play for high school). He debates repenting for selling his soul to the Devil, and this debate takes on the form of two voices: John Donaldson playing the Good Angel and Nicole Hamidi playing the Evil Angel. Very eerie effect to hear and not see these angels. Made me wonder whether Doctor Faustus was just imagining it. We the audience hope and pray for him to repent, but are sympathetic nevertheless when he doesn't.

Helen was played comically by a non-too-graceful Jacinthe Connor in a white mask and blonde wig. Matt's sensual baritone added to the humor of the scene. While Helen resembled a clown, Matt seemed like a German professor featured on the cover of a steamy Romance Novel... perhaps "Doctor Faustus Makes a House Call!"

Too bad I'm writing this now. Today was the last performance. But I'm just letting those know who didn't attend: y'all missed out.

Beards

Well, this is the second attempt in my life to grow a beard. It's going much better than the first attempt two years ago. A man's facial hair may develop throughout his 20s. I'm 25, and I still don't have what you could call a full beard.

After week one, I was at a Frida Kahlo.

After week two, I described myself as somewhere between a Frida Kahlo and an Orlando Bloom.

I'm at week three. Still not quite Orlando Bloom, which is probably the very best I can hope for. Definitely cannot grow a ZZ Top.

I would not normally attempt such a stunt, but I think it would be really good for the part of Laertes. Even a rougeish thing on my upper lip and my chin. By the way, my mustache and goatee do not attach to create a ring beard.

I have not left it completely un-tampered. I can't stand neck beard, so I started shaving that. Also, I have to pluck out the high stragglers on my cheek bones. And not every hair grows at the same rate, so I have to use scissors to keep them at a uniform length. Who knew growing a beard could be so much more work than shaving it off? It itches, too, like nobody's business.

Last night I dreamed I was kissing a gorgeous woman, but she had to stop because I was scratching up her face. It'll be a lonely couple of months until the show's over. Well, not really, because I'm with a cast and company I love.

Here I am

Alright... so I'm tired of paying for my domain http://www.pdev.us, so I decided to start my own blog here, under the advice of my old roommate, Eli, who keeps his own blog, Rust Belt Philosophy.

So, about myself: I am the son of Dutch immigrants and I grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts. Theater is my main passion in life. I tried to deny that for a while. I tried taking a safer route in life and attended many job interviews for positions I didn't want. But the Recession has taught me that there is no safe route in life, so I might as well pursue what I love.

I know. I'm gambling with my future. But every choice is a gamble. I could be offered guaranteed employment pursuing something else, but I might run the risk of excruciating boredom. I also know that there is probably no woman out there who would want an aspiring actor, but I've tried being loved for who I'm not. Nothing could be lonelier.

I'll tell you how it happened. I had given up theater after acting in two Hampshire Shakespeare productions in the summer of 2008. Instead, I tried very hard to be someone's boyfriend. I decided I was a writer, instead, and tried writing a novel. The relationship ended, and I still thought I was a writer, not an actor.

Then my good friends at the Hampshire Shakespeare Company gave me a call in February. They needed an MC for their fundraiser "Sleeping with Shakespeare." I decided to do it. It all came back to me. This was where I belonged. And I needed to get into one of their summer shows.

And so I auditioned for Hamlet and got the part of Laertes. And this part is going to be the bulk of the subject matter of my entries from now until the end of July. And then, hopefully I can write about other acting experiences.