Well, dear readers, we’re another day closer to a brand spanking New Year and, of course, our Rockin’ New Year’s Eve Do. It’s been a rather strange, wacky, and even amazing year, and over the next few days I’ll be ruminating on my year, oh, yes, I’ll be ruminating on my year. At this time last year, as we were counting down to 2006, we were in rehearsal for Deceit and I was still writing the short story collection. Starting the year off with a new show was, frankly, odd. Going into previews I was quite nervous about it all, having never written a thriller before. After the first two previews, I was hopeful that we’d done something right, based on the audience reaction, which was really good. All the previews had good reaction, actually, and we continued to hone the play and staging as much as we could. And then, we had a disastrous opening night performance. Why? In my opinion, it was for a couple of reasons, the first of which had to do with our publicist, who, for whatever reasons, loaded the opening with so many reviewers that they took up half the theater. You could actually feel the negativity in that theater before one word of the play was spoken. Then, the actors, who’d just come off of four very good previews, that had had very vocal reaction, let the negativity get to them, and they began to mis-time every well-rehearsed line and bit of business, and it just got worse and worse as the evening went on. The murder scene that ends act one must have run five minutes longer than usual, simply because Matt Ashford could not get Tammy’s bra undone (those who’ve seen the play know what I’m talking about). It was embarrassing. Some of the audience was very nice, but I knew we were in trouble and that the show was going to get hideous reviews. I probably would have given it a hideous review based on that performance. And so it came to pass – the first two online reviews I saw were actually raves. Then came the real reviews, and I could not have predicted how vicious they’d be. Our second performance was much better, with the actors back on track and the audience reaction back to what it was – lots of laughs, a few gasps, and hearty applause at the end.
I felt we were going to have to do major damage control, but our publicist never did it. In fact, his one contribution after the reviews came out was to convince us to change the poster and ad campaign to a startling image of Tammy, with tape across her mouth and terror in her eyes, about to be done in by a gloved killer. While it may have brought in a few people, the damage it did was swift and interesting – the play, which had always gotten a lot of laughs, stopped getting them, because people had seen that image and were waiting for it to happen. They saw an image that precluded comedy and, in retrospect, we shouldn’t have done it. Then, after weeks of watching an actor not be able to play the role the way I’d written it, and thereby irreparably hurting the second act, when his contract was up we let him go and I took over, not a decision I took lightly, I can tell you. It was my first time on stage in twenty-one years and I was petrified. Matt was wonderful about rehearsing with me until I was as comfortable as I was going to be. I did a run-through with my assistant and a couple of people watching, and it went well and they laughed, which was very important to both the character and the play. And so I played our final two weeks (we’d extended twice prior to that – amazing, given our reviews – but audiences liked the show), and we taped our final performance and I issued it on DVD. It was ultimately a fascinating if frustrating experience. I was proud of the play and my direction – but, in hindsight, I should have taken more time with the casting (only Matt was pitch-perfect). There are specific moments I will cherish, though – especially the stunned audience reaction at almost every performance when the murder happened. I don’t think most people had quite seen anything like it. And there was always a wonderful reaction to the final revelation of the play. And that was the way my year began. From January to April, Deceit was my world, that and writing the final short stories for the collection.
My goodness, that was ruminating, wasn’t it? And really long ruminating. Why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because there is only so much ruminating one can do in this section and I have surpassed my ruminating quota.
Yesterday – that’s right – there was a yesterday, and all my troubles seemed so far away. And they will continue to seem far away, and that’s all there is to that. I got a wonderful night’s sleep, I jogged, I attended the final day at the now closed Heavy Rotation store (I brought them a cake), and I intended to eat lightly, which I sort of did, if you don’t count my incessant eating of peanuts, almonds, and whatever else I could get my mitts on. I also shipped out the orders that had come in.
I also watched two count them two motion pictures on DVD. The first motion picture on DVD was entitled The Young Philadelphians, starring Mr. Paul Newman and a wonderful cast of actors such as Miss Barbara Rush, Miss Alexis Smith, Mr. Otto Kruger, Mr. Brian Keith, Mr. Robert Vaughn, and many others. It’s a terrific potboiler, directed with assurance by Vincent Sherman, the kind of film they could never make today. Mr. Newman was great, as was Mr. Vaughn (who was nominated for an Oscar), but the performance of the film, for me, was Miss Barbara Rush, who was just magical and incandescent. The transfer is fine and I just had a grand time watching it. I then watched Superman II, the new Richard Donner cut, which is sort of a hybrid version assembled from Donner’s footage using his continuity. Mr. Donner was replaced by Mr. Richard Lester, who completed the film and did a lot of reshooting and new scenes. I have always detested Mr. Lester’s Superman II, so I’m happy to report that this hybrid version (which still features some Lester footage) is much, much better – in fact, it’s a whole different film and it has some heft and emotion and I could never watch the other version again. Kudos to Michael Thau and company for putting it together with such care and love. The transfer looks great – in fact, it looks much better than the Lester version, which is also included in this humungous Superman set.
Today I shall be lunching with Miss Julie Stevens, she who directed Life After Tomorrow. After that, I shall be doing nothing at all, except maybe some writing, and watching some DVDs.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, jog, lunch, write (maybe), and watch DVDs (definitely). Today’s topic of discussion: Continuing our best-of lists – name your favorite actor performances and your favorite actress performances for films released in 2006. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, as I continue to ruminate on the year 2006.