Nobody Knows Anything

Dear Mom of this girl: Please take your daughter to do some damn charity work or something.

Simon, yesterday:

Sophia, me, and Mommy will move to New York and Daddy will stay here. So I can go to the museums.

I guess he liked New York after all. I’m a little worried about how cavalier he is about consigning Daddy to being here by himself, though.

While we were in New York, we saw three plays: The Lion King (We did it for the kids, okay? And it is an amazing theatrical presentation, despite presenting one of the most abhorrent and unAmerican storylines imaginable), Frost/Nixon, and Talk Radio.

Frost/Nixon achieved one thing I thought would have been impossible: it made me wonder how the story was going to turn out. We have the story of how David Frost became the guy to score the big interview with post-Watergate Richard Nixon. Frost was evidently a lightweight show host, better known for his partying than his journalistic skills. And Nixon was, well, Nixon — bloody but unbowed after Watergate. Nixon wants to get back into politics, be the grand old man in Washington, and Frost wants to make a name for himself, rolling everything he’s got professionally and financially on setting this interview up. After much negotiation, the interviews finally start…and Frost gets hammered by Nixon, who’s an old pro at taking charge. What is Frost going to do?

Frank Langella is great as Nixon, and Michael Sheen is wonderful as Frost. The supporting cast is pretty good — the narrator is an associate of Frost who informs us of scene changes and where and when we are at any point. During the interviews, the actors are projected on TV monitors at the back of the stage, so Frost and Nixon get the job of doing stage acting and screen acting at the same time.

However, there’s something I really need to investigate: according to my playwriting teacher, Actors Equity rules say that every single actor on stage gets paid the same, no matter what — which is why these days you don’t have the casts of thousands you might have had in, say, a Noel Coward play. In Frost/Nixon, however, there are a ton of actors on the stage, and some of them have very few lines. One of them, Nixon’s dresser, had one line. And no one is in that theater to see anyone except Frank Langella. So the producers have got to be compensating Langella somehow, if not by salary, than by some other method.

Talk Radio is Eric Bogosian’s play about a foul-mouthed shock jock the night before he goes into national syndication. He manages to alienate his friends and his lover — will he manage to alienate all of us, too? Who is this guy, what drives him to do the things he does? Barry Champlain, the talk radio host, does a number of interviews with callers, who want to argue with him, or praise him, or what have you. We get monologues from his friend/sound engineer, from his producer/girlfriend, from the liaison to the corporate bosses, and finally from Champlain himself, after everyone has walked out on him due to his abusive behavior. Liev Schreiber was great as Champlain, who was infuriating and hateful, while simultaneously absolutely refusing to change who he was for anyone or anything.

Three interesting things about this show:

1) Both Darin and I were stunned by how mediocre the actors doing the sound engineer and the producer were during their monologues. I mean, this is New York: you can walk into any Dunkin’ Donuts and say, “I need 35 classically trained actors!” and walk out with a full cast plus backups. I have no idea how these two got their jobs. They weren’t awful. They just weren’t very good.

2) The actors weren’t miked, which seems to be fairly rare these days. The only time anyone was miked was when Champlain was on the air.

3) The show is set in 1987, and during his on-air stint Champlain rants about several 1987-era things, primarily Iran-Contra. During Champlain’s monologue, which ended the damn show, someone screams from the top balcony, “Talk about the Iraq War!” You could hear a pin drop in the theater. Then Schreiber gets started again and once again we hear, “Talk about the Iraq War!” followed by furious hissing and shouting. I believe Schreiber, mid-monologue, started to crack up, completely ruining the dramatic import of whatever the hell he was saying. In fact, pretty much all I can remember of the monologue is that some asshole who’d just spent $50 on a ticket to a play just ruined the end of the play for everyone in that theater.

The kids and I got off the plane at 10:30pm Sunday night — Darin had flown home the day before to rehearse for the Developer’s Conference up in San Francisco (you may have heard a little bit about the recent project he developed: Safari for Windows?).

Monday night Darin was still up in San Francisco and I headed out to Foothill College for the first night of auditions for the New Works Festival. We saw maybe twenty actors, doing “sides” (small excerpts) from everyone’s plays, for the directors and playwrights in the Festival. By the end of the evening, the playwrights totally hated their own plays and probably everyone else’s too. Hearing the same damn thing over and over again can make you crazy.

That said: it was fascinating to watch how some actors just leaped off the stage at you, grabbed you by the throat, and said, “I have presence!” You could tell when every director and playwright in the room was writing down exclamation marks next to an actor’s name. One actor was so good that, even though we’d seen one particular side about 48 times, she still managed to crack us up with it. That is beyond talent, it’s just lightning in a bottle. I have no idea why some people have it and some don’t.

I got home at 11. Darin got home some time after that, so he won on the “busy” spectrum.

Tuesday night we all trooped back to Foothill for the second night of auditions. Everyone had said that the second night would be much bigger in terms of number of actors, because actors are superstitious and believe that if they come the first night you’ll forget them. (One of the people sitting in the theater said, “Well, that’s pretty much true, actually.”) However, rumor did not turn out to be true, and we had fewer actors to see. Then afterward the playwrights and directors and festival management got together and hashed out casting lists for everyone’s play, and I think everyone was fairly pleased with how things shook out.

Wow, is casting not an easy process. For one thing, actors just have to spontaneously do their best, with no rehearsal, with no preparation. For another thing, what one person might like in an actor, another person might not like at all. (In fact, that happened to my carpool mate and me with one actor: she was thrilled with the audition, I was like, “Are you kidding?”) And then there were some actors who were very good but just completely wrong for the roles available. And then there were the actors we all know but had nothing for — that was the toughest. What do you say next time you see them? “You were great, you just weren’t right for the play.” It’s true…but it hurts.

Despite seeing many fewer actors and casting the plays relatively quickly, I still got home at 10:30. Everyone was asleep.

Wednesday night was Playwriting class, and in addition to some very funny stuff by one writer (including a deeply funny and vicious sendup of the audition night process), we did 41 pages of my current play in progress. And I got glowing reviews from my classmates, and since I know how critical they can be, I was walking on air afterward. (I tried walking on water: failed miserably.) I told everyone I’d written all of the pages they hadn’t seen before pretty much on the flight from San Francisco to New York (when I was flying first class), and the teacher suggested they take up a collection to send me on a flight from San Francisco to Australia so I could finish it.

I got home at 10:30 and wasn’t walking particularly steadily. I avoided falling asleep during the car ride and felt this was a great victory.

Thursday I collapsed and napped at home while the kids played World of Warcraft and watched whatever TV shows they wanted. I don’t want to fall asleep when I’m home with the kids, but I couldn’t stop myself. And they hadn’t watched much TV or played World of Warcraft in weeks, so I didn’t feel too guilty.

Just during the auditions I felt like I learned a ton about how to put on a show. I am so thrilled to be involved with the New Works Festival — Foothill is a great training ground for actors, writers, and directors. I’ve gotten much more hands on experience with the process of actually making a script into reality there than I ever did at USC. How amazing is that?

Next week: the kids are in camp and I’m just going to sleep.

At least, spoilers about them. Darin and I can’t watch the final two episodes until Wednesday at the earliest, and whilst in New Jersey yesterday I saw a gigantic spoiler about last week’s episode. (The Sunday Star-Ledger had a lot of space devoted to the end of the Sopranos. Sigh.) Given the number of blogs I look at, I can tell this is going to be tough. No newspapers. No Salon. Definitely no talking to Otto.

• All Chinese restaurants in New York are apparently required to serve sushi too. And the Japanese restaurant we went into served chicken satay. This is really, really WEIRD and I wish you guys would stop it.
• I did not see one rat or cockroach the entire time I was there. I think this may have been a first.
• It takes approximately forty-five minutes of jaywalking across Upper West Side streets to undo the years of training we’ve instilled in the kids to cross a street a)only at the curb and b)only when the light is green. Now they tug on hands and say, “Let’s go!”
• I am pushier than most New Yorkers.
• New Yorkers are thinner than the average American because not only do they walk everywhere (which is great) but passageways are very narrow. This is a city built a long time ago and is not easily made handicapped-accessible. Entering and moving around Serendipity frightened me.
• I finally understand Crackberry mania. Everyone in this town has a Blackberry. Maybe everyone who goes in to an office job has one these days, but wow: I had no idea. My friend Michele (your friend too; you know her, check your Rolodex) had a Blackberry that she Could. Not. Stop. Checking.
• Even if I needed a Blackberry (which I don’t), I wouldn’t get one. Because I’d get an iPhone. Which I’ve seen demonstrated in real life*, thankyouverymuch, and it is totally better than sliced bread. I’m the person who saw no need for people to have a little device to carry MP3s, okay? And I desperately want one of these iPhones. But I’m going to stay strong. For a little while.
• There are lots of apartments for sale on Central Park West for twenty million dollars.
• And I’m not in one.
• Sophia took to this city like a duck to water. I fully expect she was checking out the FOR RENT ads while our backs were turned.
• Simon, not so much: “Can we go home now?”
• If you want to get theater tickets, give yourself a little extra time and go to the TKTS booth down at Duffy Square (near the former Fulton Fish Market) rather than the Times Square location. At Times Square, I was apparently there on an easy day and only had to wait twenty minutes or so; at the Duffy Square booth, it was me and a guy named Frank and Frank wasn’t even too sure which show he wanted to see, so I went ahead of him.
• Darin and I disagree on where to get the best rugelach: I say Zabar’s, he says Cafe Lalo.
• Man, we loved us some Cafe Lalo while we were there.
• We were also quite fond of the Popovers Cafe.
• Simon wanted to eat a diet solely consisting of street vendor hot dogs. He could down one of those things in seconds.
• The Hayden Sphere at the Natural History museum totally rocks.

* My brother-in-law Mitch works on iPhone and carries one around. He’s not allowed to let the Great Unwashed touch his phone, but he was allowed to demonstrate any and all features, which is how I saw one in action and they are as supercool as you have been brainwashed into thinking they are.

Six or eight months ago, my friend Michele pinged me and said, “Hey, the rest of us are all going to the Backspace conference in New York, so you have to go too.”

And I said, “Well, if I have to, I have to,” and I began making plans to head out to New York. (It turned out that Michele had said the same things to the others, so we all made our plans under false pretenses. Ah well.) The first thing I had to do, of course, was figure out how Darin would take care of the kids while I was away. Muahahahaha. That part was fun.

I arrived in New York and settled in to the van of one of the craziest shuttle drivers I’ve had the, um, privilege of driving with. The woman next to me and I joked about our last days on Earth, and I managed to scrounge up a seat belt because, as I put it, “If he slams on the brakes, I’m straight through the front window.” I finally got to the hotel a good two and a half hours after landing, where I met up with Michele and we squee-ed like little girls. We had dinner, then went back to the room.

“We’re in New York. We should really go out somewhere.”

She said, “Yeah, we really should.”

So, off we went to the subway, down to Times Square –

(Holy Mother of Zeus, there’s a Toys R Us in Times Square now. Wow. So now where do I have to go for hookers? Brooklyn? Yonkers?)

– and thence to the Algonquin, where the get-together cocktail party for Backspace attendees was being held. The wonderful and warm Karen Dionne welcomed us, although we’d missed most of the party and neither of us was particularly interested in drinking at that moment. So after introductions and a little chat, Michele and I headed back uptown to our hotel, where we tried to crash.

The first day of the conference Tamar arrived, and since I haven’t seen her in two years we squee-ed like little girls. The conference sessions were for the most part good, although the Algonquin is not my idea of a good time — we were all under strict orders not to bring in any outside food, because if the Algonquin staff found one rogue Starbucks cup, BAM! The conference organizers were going to get hit with a massive fine. And hello: I was still on California time.

After the conference, Tamar, Michele, and I headed immediately back to the hotel, where Toni was waiting for us, having just flown in from Louisiana (and boy, were her arms tired). We picked up some food at Zabar’s and H&H Bagels, and then settled into the living room of the hotel suite to have a picnic and catch up. Tamar had to take off at about nine to head home. At which point Michele, Toni, and I said, “You know, we’re in New York. We should really go out.” So we headed out to Barnes & Noble, where I made Toni sign her books, and then it was off to Cafe Lalo, which is a great dessert cafe (whose claim to fame was that it was featured in You’ve Got Mail).

On Friday it was back to the conference (and the inhalation of a coffee and muffin before setting foot in the Algonquin). We cut out of the conference a little early, because we had important things on our agenda: 1) checking out the New York Apple Store (okay, this may have been primary on my agenda) and 2) getting a personal tour of the offices, stages, and studios of NBC News, the Olympics, and Saturday Night Live. from a friend of Michele’s. (Michele knows everyone. You know Michele. You do. Check your Rolodex.)

Saturday we headed off en masse to Book Expo America, the trade show for publishers, in which everyone gets together to advertise their wares and schmooze and do whatever the hell it is publishers and booksellers and distributors do when they get together.

You know the saying “Kid in a candy store”? Well, despite my love of sugar I’m not that fond of candy stores — my passions are ice cream and cake, in that order, and even I can only eat so much of either. I have no such limitations when it comes to books. “Kid in a book store” is much more my speed.

“Kid at BEA Convention” is the ultimate expression of this.

Two floors filled with publishers hawking their wares. Giant piles of ARCs for the taking! Flyers and posters and authors autographing!

I actually couldn’t figure out how I was going to get in. I was going to buy a badge, but being neither author nor publisher nor distributor nor bookseller nor dyed-in-the-wool schmoozer I wasn’t qualified to get in. However, over the past year or so Tamar has become friends with the beautiful and talented Alaya Dawn Johnson, who very kindly offered Tamar a pass to BEA and then came up with another one when Tamar said her friend Diane needed one too. (Michele had a friend who got her one, and Toni was a featured guest of St Martin’s Press, so they were taken care of.)

The biggest “Whoa!” moment for me was when we passed a gigantic line for one of the autograph tables, much, much longer than the given aisle for it. The line snaked down through an aisle filled with publishers, impeding the flow of traffic. I stopped one of the people in line and asked who she was waiting for.

“Patterson,” she said.

I blinked.

It took me a second to realize that she meant James Patterson. (Sadly, no relation. If he were a relation, I would be blogging this from my penthouse atop Notre Dame Cathedral, believe you me.) But I think I may have imprinted upon this experience. Talk about something to shoot for.

I shipped home 48 pounds of books, some probably good, some I already suspect are bad, the rest complete unknowns. The shippers knew they had a captive audience and raped and pillaged accordingly: $35 per box plus the cost of shipping. But I certainly wasn’t lugging home that many books, nor was I going to sort through them right then.

When Toni, Tamar, and I fell out of Javits Center, there was not a cab to be had for blocks. (No idea what happened to Michele, but I suspect she was meeting the last people in America she wasn’t friends with yet.) We kept walking and kept finding pockets of people desperately hailing cabs that were nowhere to be seen. We crawled back to the hotel room, sadly lacking in the fixings for margaritas but intensely pleased with how much fun this little vacation was.

If I can figure out some way for Darin to take care of the kids, I am so all over doing this again next year.