August on the Theater Pub blog

Another month, another two columns.

In "A Monologue of One's Own," I wrote about the whirlwind experience of preparing to play Virginia Woolf in a monologue by playwright Jeremy Cole, part of an evening of pro-choice theater honoring NARAL. I was a replacement for an actress who'd had to drop out a week before the show, so there I was, still not really accustomed to thinking of myself as an actor, opening the show with an 8-minute monologue, portraying a real-life famous person with an accent not my own.

My performance was captured on video (credit: Paul Anderson) -- how do you think I did?


Then, this week, I wrote a something called "An Introvert's Guide to Theater" -- maybe the title is a little far-reaching for what it is, which is a piece about how I'm not anti-social, but I do get run-down after too much socialization. Which can be a disadvantage when you're a theater artist. There are probably more introverted theater people out there than anyone realizes, though, and it's a topic I'd like to explore more in future.

And (if you're reading this in time) come see the Pint-Sized Plays at Theater Pub! I didn't write or direct any of the shows this year, but I produced the whole evening: read all the submissions, selected the plays and directors, sent innumerable emails and put out a fair few fires. The result is a lot of fun and it's been drawing packed houses. We have 2 more performances, August 24 and 25.

Three Brief Reviews of Three Brief Books

Hello! Apologies for my long absence. In mid-February, I was off the grid on a week-long vacation; and for the past two weeks, I've been trying to recover from a lingering head cold.

On my vacation, I stayed at the literary-themed Sylvia Beach Hotel on the Oregon coast, in the Virginia Woolf and J.K. Rowling rooms -- so naturally, I found myself reading the books that were on hand there.

I'm also participating in a year-long book-reading contest with some friends, and every little bit counts...

Virginia Woolf by Mary Ann Caws
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

In this short bio, Mary Ann Caws depicts Virginia Woolf as an enthusiastic, thoughtful woman who cherished her friends -- counter-balancing the stereotypical image of Woolf as depressed and suicidal. But in so doing, Caws neglects Woolf's work as a novelist and essayist, which, after all, is what made her famous and why we still care about her. If I recall correctly, this book mentions Mrs. Dalloway only in passing and doesn't discuss A Room of One's Own at all, and those are two of Woolf's most notable works. Instead, it feels like most of the book describes the bohemian habits and complicated relationships of the Bloomsbury Group. One perk of this book is that it's lavishly illustrated with vintage photos of all of the people it mentions. But ultimately, it gives you a much better sense of Woolf's milieu than of her own life or her writing.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As literary fairy tales, the five Tales of Beedle the Bard are far from the most interesting ones I've ever read -- some of them wear their influences too obviously, e.g. "Babbitty Rabbitty" is clearly modeled on "The Emperor's New Clothes." But it's always charming to spend time in the Wizarding World, especially in the company of the beloved Albus Dumbledore, who provides criticism and commentary on each of the five tales. The most interesting element of this book is the "Postmodernism for Kids" aspect of it: it is presented as being written hundreds of years ago by Beedle the Bard, translated recently by Hermione Granger, with Dumbledore's commentary, an introduction by J.K. Rowling, and footnotes by both Dumbledore and Rowling. If I ever have children, I might want to give them this book as an introduction to concepts like intertextuality, literary criticism, subtext, metafiction, etc.

Now All We Need is a Title: Famous Book Titles and How They Got That Way by André Bernard
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Did you know that John Steinbeck originally wanted to give Of Mice and Men the laughably bad title Something That Happened? Or that both Dorothy Parker and Dashiell Hammett's publisher thought that The Maltese Falcon was a terrible title? Those pieces of title-related trivia, and many more, can be found in this little compendium. One can see how this kind of book would be more useful before the Internet existed (nowadays this would be a Buzzfeed list, not a book), and it feels like the publisher had to pad it out to even get it to be over 100 pages, but it's nice to be reminded that while certain famous book titles may sound inevitable to us now, some of them were anything but.

View all my reviews

Nicole Kidman as Halloween Inspiration

Is Nicole Kidman my favorite actress? I don't know; she's had a bit of a strange career path lately, though "come what may, I will love her until my dying day" for Moulin Rouge. But judging by the number of times her roles have inspired my Halloween costumes over the last several years, you'd be forgiven for thinking that.

Freshman year of college, I dressed up as "Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf." Basically I wanted an excuse to buy nose putty and make myself a monstrously huge fake nose. I also thought that this was the kind of clever, intellectual costume that would appeal at Vassar. Little did I know that Halloween at Vassar is the night when everyone puts away the intellectual pretentions that weigh heavily upon them for the other 364 nights of the year and just lets loose. I felt embarrassed to have chosen such a deliberately frumpy costume.

Kidman as Virginia Woolf
me as Virginia Woolf

Oddly enough, the "frumpy" dress I bought at Goodwill, when divorced from the fake nose, ugly hat and clumpy shoes, actually turned out to fit me really well, and has since become one of my favorite wardrobe pieces. I wore it when portraying a 1930s character in my play last spring.

I already wrote a lengthy blog post about my last year's Halloween costume: Marguerite Gauthier from La Dame aux Camélias. This character, as you may know, inspired the character of Satine the tubercular courtesan in Moulin Rouge. And Kidman/Satine's astoundingly gorgeous red gown in that movie set me off on a years-long quest for my own perfect red dress. I found one in Paris a year and a half ago, and wore it for my Dame aux Camélias costume.

Kidman in Moulin Rouge

me as La Dame aux Camélias

And this year? The choice was simple: Mrs. Coulter from The Golden Compass. I have loved the book since I was 9 years old, and when the movie came out last winter, it made the story better-known and gave Mrs. Coulter a distinctive "look." In the movie, Kidman makes her first entrance in a gown that is all-over gold sequins, and as luck would have it, I had purchased just that kind of gown for $2 at a rummage sale several years ago. I then bought a stuffed-animal golden lion tamarin (to represent the golden-monkey daemon), consulted this tongue-in-cheek guide for "How to Be Like Mrs. Coulter," and I was set to hit the town!


Kidman as Mrs. Coulter (with Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra)

me as Mrs. Coulter, with the golden monkey (I'm keeping it and have decided to name it "Philip" in honor of Philip Pullman. Oh, and it's a complete coincidence that my pose in this photo mimicks that of Kidman in the picture above. I am not that obsessed!)

Of course it's too early to tell what I'll be for Halloween next year, though as I've mentioned before, I've often wanted to work up a Margot Tenenbaum costume. Still, if that doesn't pan out, I'm dying to see Nicole Kidman/Baz Luhrmann's new movie Australia, and the images and costume sketches of Kidman's character reveal that she again has a very tempting wardrobe--slinky '30s dresses mixed with safari gear!