Lives of the (everyday) Saints

Lives of the (*everyday) Saints
*or that's what I would of called it...
by David Ives

First produced in Aug of 1999 - I continue to wonder what was I doing/where was I living & How Did I Miss This?!

This was presented here by special arrangement w/Dramatists Play Serv Inc NY

Acting Unlimited, Inc (AUI) presents...

Act I
Enigma Variations

(note: I thought they should surely play 'Enigma' here to start/stop the sketch - but really whomever chose the music as is did a really interesting job of it & perhaps that too was a part of the whole play...I wouldn't know unless I ask the Director...one day - or on Twitter, where people will answer you that you'd never dream would?!)

The Mystery at Twicknam Vicarage

Babel's in Arms

Intermission (Yes, this is from the Program)

Act II

Soap Opera

(note: the Star a washing machine--which I'd never seen done before & I Liked It?!)

Lives of the Saints

Arabian Nights

Captive Audience


Production Credits:
Director/Set Designer - Cara Hayden
Assist Dir/Stage Mgr - Nick Dooley
House Mgr - Shannon Kenast
Tech Dir - Walter Brown
Light Designer - Joseph Diaz (note: I think this is the only 1 I've met before?!)
Box Office - Patricia D. Sidman
Special Project Artisans - Nancy Dere, Gudrun Schubert (note: now I'm wondering just what they made on stage to be given this credit - curious...)

Under each Sketch in each Act they listed the actors, which often repeated - so will just list them all alphabetically...

Cast List:
Arceneaux, Catharine
Barras, Vincent P.
Dere, Kaan
Dere, Nancy
Diaz, Joseph
Diaz, Martha (note: her I've seen in 2 or 3 productions before & know she can sing)
Dronet, Annie
Ducharme, Gerard
Dunstan, Cody
Hebert, Cindy
Kibodeaux, Elaine (note: I think I've met her on Twitter, yet to in person)
Segura, Erin
Snyder, John
Spear, Phillip


Play run...
January 12, 13, 19, 20, 21 at 7:30 pm
January 14 at 8:00 pm
January 15 & 22 at 3:00 pm

I went Thursday the 19th at 7:30 pm (before I left for the w/e to Houston, TX)
And of course went directly next door for a Gelato at Carpe Diem Gelato-Espresso Bar during Intermission  having earlier had my espresso there too while putting up posters as Super Awesome AcA Volunteer (a new title, was given Awesome--added Super...because of course we 'all' want to be, if not Saints, then Super Heroes?!)



From the postcard handout...

"AUI will kick off the 2012 performance calendar at Theatre 810 with Lives of the Saints, an evening of riotously funny one-act comedies by one of the contemporary theatre's brightest comic playwrights, David Ives.

Lives of Saints is an evening of  7 quirky, funny & wildly imaginative one-acts by Ives.
In Saints, Ives' comic imagination takes audiences to ancient Mesopotamia for the construction of the Tower of Babel...

Babel's in Arms

...to a wee British vicarage for a twisted "Masterpiece Theatre" murder mystery...

The Mystery at Twicknam Vicarage

...to a quirky souvenir shop where a wildly exotic love blooms...

Arabian Nights

...and into a TV set where a couple finds themselves lost in a blur of channels...

Captive Audience

And that's just half the evening.

Local audiences have experienced Ives' work in his other one-act evening All in the Timing & in his revisionist take on Don Juan, Don Juan in Chicago.

In Lives of the Saints, audiences can expect a playful evening of broad physical comedy, whip-smart jokes & ceaselessly imaginative riffs on contemporary culture.
There's something for everyone in Lives of the Saints.

Lives of the Saints is directed by Cara Hayden, who co-directed AUI's summer production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. (Wait I saw that, maybe I have seen Cara before & didn't even know it - I'm bad like that?!)

The production features performances by..." (note: see my list of Cast above alphabetically)


Two one-acts that I've been calling sketches or shorts weren't mentioned in the postcard/handout -

Enigma Variations - which was at first confusing, but fun to figure out as you went along - this interesting De-ja-vu twist w/a troubled girl visiting the Dr's office...
I've since asked Elaine via Twitter how they all/she managed to keep in body/motion synch throughout the one-act without being directly across from each other - I would of found that difficult, as well as the parts without speaking as you mimed what the other 'you' was doing...also liked the unexpected part of patients exchanging doctors parts...but all in all have to wonder why this was chosen as the first bit, if any of the one-acts do fit together one to the other?!

(photo credit: maytag.com - traditional top loader - the Centennial Trademark edition...haven't a clue what they really used in the play The Lives of Saints - one act - Soap Opera...but it was deff a top loader, or how else would washing machine Goddess White pop out of the Maypole washing machine?!)

Soap Opera - OK, just hands down my fav one-act...I adore the play on a 'Maytag' & the proverbial bored Repairman because of the perfect repair record of such a washing machine (as portrayed in many an advertisement/commercial on TV) - in this play/this one-act they call the washing machine a Maypole & there's a real girl/to be girl friend who's a Mabel (if I followed this naming thing correctly--plus that sounds alot like Maypole too...) But the "Goddess in the Machine" was perfect & what fun, all the further play on words or objects that have to do with said washing machine or repairman...I mean it starts off with him trying to take his washing machine on a date to a fancy restaurant?!

Lives of Saints - confusing as it's the overall name of the play & also one of the one-acts in Act II...
two lovely old friends/old ladies who organize the church food for the funerals - it was odd enough to hear the sounds of their kitchen movements, as it was when they were revealed in the middle of the act (now how they coordinated that with keywords in the dialog I guess was something else--I would of missed those cues for sure, to make those sounds of opening cupboards or drawers or mixers or running water, etc...)

After that one-act & in thinking back on it being the overall name, it's when I felt like it was really the Lives of Everyday Saints instead he was talking about...but that's my opinion of course, must read more of what's behind this combination of one-acts...

Link to AUI - Acting Unlimted Inc - to read more about the play: The Lives of the Saints...
http://actingunlimitedinc.org/

From their "We're in the News!" section...

"Acting Unlimited and Theatre 810 have been in the news today! The Baton Rouge Advocate ran a feature on the theatre space and our show LIVES OF THE SAINTS in the Monday, January 2nd edition, and KLFY, Channel 10, filmed a feature this afternoon at the space. There will be a link to that video posted as soon as it becomes available. Keep an eye on AUI and Theatre 810! 2012 has started with a bang!"

Link to one review & prob better description than I managed...
"Leave Room for Jell-O - A brilliant trip through Ives Country, with an unexpected detour"
by Cary M. Mazer of CityPaper.Net after watching the performance I'm guessing with the Philadelphia Theatre Co. at Plays & Players Theatre
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cmazer/lives.html
(note: the reviewer leaned toward the Lives of the Saints rather than Soap Opera for their memorable one-act...it's curious how that works huh?!)

Link to where you can buy an Acting Edition on Amazon.com--for only $8.00...
http://www.amazon.com/Lives-Saints-Acting-David-Ives/dp/0822217465

Link to read more about the playwright on Wiki...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ives

Link to a rare interview of sorts as the playwright answers questions during the plays world premiere - on Playbill.com "David Ives Discusses His Lives in Rare Philadelphia Q&A" Feb 1999...
http://www.playbill.com/features/article/64862-David-Ives-Discusses-His-Lives-in-Rare-Philadelphia-QA (note: my fav line... "...Soap Opera recounts the love affair between a repairman and his washing machine -- a hot-and-cold relationship, you might say."

photo credit: from playbill.com

(note: think he's looking better here in black & white than in his color photo below...)

Link to Zoetrope All-Story blurb about the playwright - David Ives - & a link to his article "Why Write for Theatre?" in Vol 4 No 4...
http://www.all-story.com/search.cgi?action=show_author&author_id=79
(note: is it me, but I like to know Why People Write...so of course I like to read...)

photo credit: from GoodReads.com

an exerpt by David Ives...

"So much for the high road. There are a million other, more mundane reasons to write for the theater. Because your spouse keeps telling you that your life as a podiatrist would make a terrific play. Because you want to commemorate a parent or an uncle or a sibling or a friend. Because you want to resuscitate a failed marriage or affair and make your lost spouse or lover speak again. Because you want to send a letter to the dead by way of the living. Because you're an idiot and you think Hollywood's going to buy your play about you and your hamster and make you rich. Because you saw The Star-Spangled Girl at your community theater and think you can do better. Because you want to see your name in the paper, and crave the admiration of our perceptive, tasteful, well-informed, and ever-encouraging "critics." Because you think the theater provides endless opportunities for getting laid. Because you find actors smart, perceptive, and unimaginably gallant and you want to hang out and have drinks with them on a regular basis. Because you glimpsed two tramps waiting beside a road, or an old man raging on a heath, or saw a man and woman arguing outside the bus window--and you want to imagine out loud what was going on and why and who those vanished people were. Because you have some voices in your head that won't be still. Because you want to do something really difficult--to chase down the elusive element that makes a very, very few plays good or even great and immortal, yet somehow escapes all those many other plays.
Or because you feel like it.
Or because you don't have any choice.
Because you have to. "

Link to The Ind article "Lives of the Saints Coming in January" by Anna Purdy...
http://www.theind.com/arts-a-entertainment/86-aae/9651-lives-of-the-saints-performance-in-january
(note: it was here that it was mentioned - there would be an Opening Night Dinner & Theatre with Bonnie Bell, as the restaurant sponsor & at Closing Night there would be Dessert & Theatre with Carpe Diem Gelato-Espresso Bar as another sponsor...my goodness such Yummy sponsors & neighbors downtown to have too?!)

Link to our local The Advertiser article about the play...
http://www.theadvertiser.com/article/20120119/ACADIANA/120119003/Acting-Unlimited-Inc-presents-David-Ives-Lives-of-the-Saints

Link to where it was available on EventBrite.com...
http://lives.eventbrite.com/
Link to where it was also availabe on Zvents.com...
http://www.zvents.com/z/lafayette_la/aui-presents-david-ives-lives-of-the-saints--events--233302465
(note: Now I'm torn on which online event/'vent place to go for tickets if I just don't drive down there...It looks as if they both just copied the postcard/handout - except someone at EventBrite & also at Zvents - curious that - mispelled 'wee' as 'twee' so that was kinda of comic to go along with all the rest of the fun...best go back & check my spelling now or I'll be adding to even more besides the point fun...And I just went to buy a ticket during the day as I was running downtown for AcA volunteering & just happened by next door for an espresso at Carpe Diem Gelato-Espresso Bar...yeah--just happened, that's right...)

Link to a May of last year review, now that was obvious--by the month alone...after the Feb review above...succinctly just called "Theatre Review" by Roy Giles...
http://www.arcadiamagazine.org/lives-of-the-saints-by-david-ives-ghostlight-theatre.html
(note: here he's repeated some of the fun lines in the one-act Soap Opera, between the washing machine goddess or 'White' - I didn't catch her name in the play - & the repairman...)

Link to article in Uncovering Oklahoma - Lives of the Saints Q&A - only this time with a director from Ghostlight Theatre Club's production of  The Lives of the Saints...
http://www.uncoveringoklahoma.com/2011/05/lives-of-the-saints-qa/
(note: I especially liked the photos included--it was interesting to see the 'boulder' for Babel's in Arms was a huge chunk of styrofoam in their version & the stoneman a woman...Oh the fun to produce a play?!)

Link to Berkshire on Stage - Mill City Productions staging of 4 of David Ives One-Act plays - one of which is The Lives of the Saints & a photo of him/the playwright - like their play of  words too: "Four One Act Plays--The Ives Have It"...
http://berkshireonstage.com/2010/08/06/mill-city-productions-to-stage-four-one-act-plays-by-david-ives/
(note: at the bottom, something else blew me away--the Cisco ad/vid for their Unified Data Center...I love it--the motion/the words/the music/the digital stream looking like water drops...all of this & more, it must of won a prize--it's a Winner?! but then I have ADDY's on my mind of late, here in Lafayette, now I find myself wanting to know more of Who Created This Thing of Beautiful Advertising - again, I may repeat, it's why I wanted to major in Marketing to get to Advertising to be anywhere near Creators of stuff like 'This' ad?! Link to where you can watch too... from Twitter: bit.ly/yCR4IR or find it on YouTube - am having trouble finding that link, so later, since it's beside the point... )

 ...

Childishness at A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens

A new stage adaptation
Created by members of The Compound

Directed by Alicia Chaisson

Dec 10 - 23
at Theatre 810
Downtown Lafayette
next door to Carpe Diem Gelato/Espresso
or The Juliet Hotel

Cast of Characters...
Ebenezer Scrooge -- Duncan Thistlethwaite
Bob Crachit -- Steven Cooper
Jacob Marley -- Aren Chaisson
Ghost of Christmas Past -- Sarah Gauthier
Present -- Martha Diaz
Yet to Come -- Gina Baronne
Boy -- Alicia Chaisson
Narrator -- Cody Daigle

et al -- has been added to a number of these characters, because they do play other characters in other scenes...for ex: Aren Chaisson also plays Scrooge's Nephew & Tiny Tim, or did in the evening I attended the play...

Links to connect with The Compound - Theatre 810...

www.facebook.com/CompoundTheatre
www.twitter.com/CompoundTheatre
www.thecompoundtheatre.wordpress.com

 

cloth first edition 1843

you can read it...or you can read a Free Kindle version...

Link to Amazon.com Free Kindle Edition...

http://www.amazon.com/A-Christmas-Carol-ebook/dp/B000JQUKKU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1324542350&sr=1-1

(note: you can upload a free kindle app on your PC or your smart phone - you don't have to own a Kindle...I know it's true, because I've done both - thank you universe, as I don't know who else to properly thank/credit for either of those free apps?!)

    ###

 

photo credit: piedmontcandy.com
red bird brand soft peppermint puffs

Childishness at A Christmas Carol

I went in wondering how in the world would they perform the whole play in an hour 5 min's?!
But they did it & in a very inventive fashion I thought...

narrator - that moved the story along, as well as for fun--the narrator was also in the play & the characters would at times acknowledge him/the narrator...

a very active stage, w/a lot of movement from rolling partion walls/windows or benches or in just taking chairs from here to there or from people walking around as if flying for instance in the ghostly visit scenes...

dancing - there was the Nephews party scene with dancing & kids were pulled up from the audience to join in...of course being kids, they did & they did dance too - what great fun for them, to do more than just sit & listen (no matter how short this adaption was made...)

peppermints - there was candy at the end that the characters came up into the audience to hand out...
I do as well like how they set up the seating for this play, instead of the long row of chairs on the long wall, there were 3 or 4 shorter rows set up like a tiny auditorium seating arrangement...

make believe - the actors had to play make believe many a time, with nothing in front of them but their imaginations...like for the meal on the table, where they had to pass food & pretend to eat food as well - which I didn't focus on because I was following the story...

All in all it was, as I had been told by Alicia standing outside the theatre after Opening Night I think which I had found out I'd just missed, it was made for the children to enjoy & at the end of actually getting to watch it another night I realized that I had enjoyed it just as much as any child--I had been smiling from ear to ear for I think probably most of the play... it was great fun to enjoy a very long play or TV show usually that's a dated play from Dicken's time to begin with being done in this shorter/energetic fashion...

A Charlie Brown Christmas, Peanuts Classic, Charles Schultz
Do you see Charlie Brown's smile? that's how I felt after watching this play...
(now I have to watch this movie again...)

And with my peppermint in mouth walking out of the theatre to the lobby (with the super cushy couch I'd sat on while waiting to get my ticket) I just had to hug someone too (Cody - aka the narrator - being the closest huggable one, got my childlike release of being happy & I said something about them on the stage having fun, which is what it looked like too...though I know there are rehearsals & costumes & lines to memorize & a lot of movements in this adaptation--so it wasn't as easy as play playing I'm sure, it still looked like fun to me?!)

Thank you Theatre 810/The Compound...
now it feels a lot more like Christmastime for me & those peppermints help put you into the mood?!

 

(note: opera man bowing - only animation could find of bowing right off, but free & it's a thank you bow... so thank you wapixel.com too for the tiny bowing opera man... you're probably asking yourself why does she have to explain everything - my answer would be: don't know, just do, can't stop...?!)

A Night of New Firsts

First Night of Theatre 810 & First Play of The Compound & a New Play of Cody Daigle's...
but sadly I missed the First (Opening) Night & was there the Second Night...
close enough I'd say--still New, a Day Old Baby is still New in my book?!

Characters: Jude - Shakespeare's daughter & Judith - Shakespeare's sister
Actors: Martha Diaz & Sarah Gauthier
photo credit: The Compound's webpage
(note: my 2 fav women in the play & I didn't want to borrow all the posts photos so chose this one)

AUI/AURA & The Compound presented
William & Judith

A New Play by Cody Daigle
Directed by Alicia Chaisson

photo credit: from The Compound's webpage
a great photo of Cody Daigle, with his facial hair intact
(as you'll note previously in The Guys, he had to sans the beard for a 'stache only & now he's actually all bare faced again - until the beard grows back...Whew?! almost as bad as a woman & her haircuts... just kidding mind you, if he reads this or anyone that knows him--no offense y'all?!)

Director: Alicia Chaisson
photo credit: The Compound webpage
(note: I have not met Alicia yet, but am sure I will one day--if I continue to go to the Theatre 810 for the rest of their plays after this First New one of William & Judith...)

The Play: William & Judith's next stop--Tulsa, Oklahoma...
Since the play was developed/read at Playhouse Theatre in Tulsa, OK it will have it's World Premiere at the same theatre in Feb of next year, 2012...

Link to The Compound's webpage to read more about the new theatre collective (that's their description--collective) & the Play William & Judith with photos from the production, their first & a lot more about the actors & director & Well--just go over there & read more...
http://thecompoundtheatre.wordpress.com/

From the Program, some details follow...

Time: 1609 - 1610

Place: William Shakespeare's rooms, London (UK)

Description: (or I'd say Inspiration)

"Let me imagine, since the facts are so hard to come by, what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister, called Judith, let us say...

She was adventurous, as imaginative, as agog to see the world as he was. But she was not sent to school. She had no chance of learning grammar and logic, let alone of reading Horace and Virgil.
She picked up a book now and then, one of her brother's perhaps, and read a few pages.
But then her parents came in and told her to mend the stockings or mind the stew and not moon about with books and papers...

Had she survived, whatever she had written would have been twisted and deformed, issuing from a strained and morbid imagination. And undoubtedly, I thought, looking at the shelf where there are no plays by women, her workd would have gone unsigned...

Anonymity runs in their blood."

-Virginia Woolf
"A Room of One's Own"

photo credit:

Source: http://www.english.sbc.edu/Graphics/Other/book.jpg

Article: A Room of One's Own


From Wikipedia...

Judith Shakespeare

[In one section, Woolf invented a fictional character, Judith, "Shakespeare's sister," to illustrate that a woman with Shakespeare's gifts would have been denied the same opportunities to develop them because of the doors that were closed to women.

Like Woolf, who stayed at home while her brothers went off to school, Judith stays at home while William goes off to school.

Judith is trapped in the home: "She was as adventurous, as imaginative, as agog to see the world as he was. But she was not sent to school."

Woolf's prose holds all the hopes of Judith Shakespeare against her brother's hopes in the first sentence, then abruptly curtails Judith's chances of fulfilling her promise with "but."

While William learns, Judith is chastised by her parents should she happen to pick up a book, as she is inevitably abandoning some household chore to which she could be attending.

Judith is betrothed, and when she does not want to marry, she is beaten and then shamed into marriage by her father.

While Shakespeare establishes himself, Judith is trapped by the confines of the expectations of women.

Judith kills herself, and her genius goes unexpressed, while Shakespeare lives on and establishes his legacy.

For Woolf, Judith Shakespeare is an exemplification of the danger and waste in denying women education and the means to determine the course of their lives.]


Link to Wiki...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Room_of_One's_Own

Note: although this version of Virginia Woolf may have been Cody Daigle's inspiration his version was nowhere near this dark, though not a complete Happy (Fairy Tale) Ending either...still it fit with how William Shakespeare would have ended a play?!

photo credit: unknown
found on someone's blog who did not give credit to the original source, so do I need to give credit to their blog? hmmm...dunno for sure, they're in France & does that matter...nevermind...I like the photo for another view of Virginia Woolf in a room, a much different one than the Monk's House Room - this one with her books & a cigarette in it's proper holder in front of a painting I don't know...again, nevermind...it's the feeling of this woman in this room different than the other--but still a Women in a Room of Her (One's) Own right?!

Link to the Virginia Woolf Society...
http://www.virginiawoolfsociety.co.uk/

note: especially another black & white photo of her at the Univ of Sussex & Society of Authors at Monk's House...She looks as contemplative as a woman can be seated in possibly a Room of Her (One's) Own...

Link to Facebook Page for AUI/AURA...
http://www.facebook.com/AUI.AURA

AUI = Acting Unlimited, Inc
AURA = Acting Unlimited Repertory Academy

link to AUI webpage...
http://actingunlimitedinc.org

Link to The Ind newspaper articles by Anna Purdy...
Sept 6, 2011
http://www.theind.com/arts-a-entertainment/86-aae/8969-bet-the-bard-would-like-gelato-and-cody-daigle
Sept 13, 2011
http://www.theind.com/arts-a-entertainment/86-aae/9012-weekinder-091411


Theatre 810
address:
810 Jefferson St.
Lafayette, LA 70501
phone:
337-873-1548
tickets:
www.EventBrite.com

Note: Yes, they are right next door to Carpe Diem Gelato Espresso...could they have a better neighbor? Hello! Intermission--Espresso or Gelato or Pastries?!

Link to Closing Night - Thursday - Sept 29, 2011 - Dinner & Theatre...
http://www.eventbrite.com/org/1397247745?s=5078277

And next door/across the side street from Carpe Diem Gelato Espresso is Bonnie Belle's Bistro - which on Closing Night there will be a Dinner & Theatre combination ticket being offered for an extraordinary price of only $30.00 (am sad I will miss it most likely, but I was there on their Second Night ever I can still tell the Grandkids?!)

       ***

A woman's point of view... (yes, mine)

...as I did leave the play thinking - and wanting to talk about the women's ideas in the play?!

I can well imagine this play - William & Judith - as a Women's Studies Course, along with naturally Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" being read along side it...

How Cody Daigle--Yes, a man...could channel these women characters & their words so incredibly well is a mystery to me...as I have also read books that were written by men about women or women about men who could so 'get into the characters' that it didn't matter which gender they were writing in--they just knew the character, the people, as if they were real flesh in blood standing in front of them living/breathing/speaking/moving... (maybe one day I will ask 'the' man--How Did You Do That?!)

But I'll admit too there were Women playing the Women's parts, so they must have had some input & there's a Woman Director (Alicia Chaisson) along with them so how could she not also have her input into these women as characters - whatever the combination between them all, it was wonderful to watch/hear unfold...

And though many of the posts on The Compound's webpage comment in reply for instance by actors/directors that the story is about 'a man' or about 'Shakespeare' - I felt the story of the Women (all of them: Judith, Jude & Anne Hathaway-Shakespeare) was so much stronger, Judith afterall gets equal billing with William in the Title of the Play...

It does also make you ponder, perhaps too many women already have, if  indeed 'back in the day' of the Victorian's or Virginia Woolf's or the Elizabethian's or the Shakespeare's that Women were behind more than we know...behind the Plays or the Books or whatever else that men lay claim to - that saying that goes something like: Behind every Successful Man Stands a Great Woman, is then not just an idle remark or a feminist rant either...(btw besides, again, I'm just 'pondering' - I am also not old enough to be a Militant Feminist / Femi-Nazi, so don't go there - thank you & good night?!)

And another ponderance (is that a word-it's sounding like mispelled Shakespeare maybe) is within the character of Jude, who is illiterate in the play & what's been written as in real life as well - though a daugher of a great & famous writer - she doesn't even desire to read...which makes me think of all the women as girls who were not encouraged to do anything besides "mend the shirts or stir the stew?!"

All in all it ALL makes me very/Very/VERY grateful for living in the time that I am in right now & especially for being raised by a strong woman - my Grandmother - who told my sister & I that we could be anything we wanted to be & that we 'would' be going to college as well....my British friend's right about now would be saying "Bless Her" & I would have to agree?!