Wrestling with some Good Theatre

As many of you know, I rather enjoy theatre. To me, at times there’s nothing better than seeing what is going to end up on the stage, how something is going to be interpreted, how it’s going to look when thrown up there, what we as the audience is expected to see. So, naturally, I enjoyed my trip to go see Maryland Championship Wrestling’s Autumn Armageddon Show that I recently attended.

I should back up. Like many children, I grew up with WWE wrestling back when it was WWF and not about a bunch of pandas, and Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper were going at it. I stopped watching around the time I go into high school, but when I got into college, I started watching it again because one of my very good friends was considering going to wrestling school to learn how to be a professional wrestler because dreams come in all shapes and sizes. Some people want to be teachers. Some people want to be police officers. And some people want to put on tights and pretend fight for a shiny gold belt and the adoration of millions. No dreams are really stupid.

Unless your dream is to be Kanye West. Then your dream is stupid. Please find another one.

Sadly, my friend did not go on to wrestling school, (but is very happy and successful now) but we have fun nonetheless watching the pretend fighting of some very skilled people doing stage fighting, but because some other people take it too seriously it doesn’t get the respect it deserves. 

Back to the present, I’m not sure if any of you have been to a smaller wrestling show, but I highly recommend it. I don’t mean when the WWE takes time out of firing off fireworks and making you pay $60 to watch a bunch of matches that, let’s face it, probably end in John Cena doing something cool, but I mean a small little house show that can take place just about anywhere, including hotel ball rooms, or in the case, a gym just outside of Fredrick, Maryland. I really recommend checking something like this out, because it’s a blast and a half. 

Firstly, all of the wrestlers come out into the audience when they’re not wrestling, and you get a chance to talk to them, meet them, and get your picture taken with them. (For a nominal fee. Wrestlers have to eat, too.) So it’s a fun thing, especially for kids, because they get to meet the guy that was doing flips and we were booing literally minutes ago. 

Secondly… it’s kind of interesting to watch because these are developmental people still learning the craft of fake fighting. Yes. I am aware that Wrestling isn’t “real” in the sense that two people enter, and one man leaves with the belt as destined not so much by skill, but by what some writers thought would be more interesting. But like I mentioned before, it’s a play. Two guys are fighting for a reason given to them - maybe over a belt, maybe one of them dissed another, or maybe it’s because one doesn’t like the other one’s face. They’re all playing characters… some good, some bad. They’ve got props, they’ve got “rules” they need to follow, and some of them are improvising what’s going on just on the fly. 

Now, if this sounds suspiciously similar to theatre, that’s because it is. Yes, one is seen as a “lesser form” because… well, reasons. But the wrestlers getting up there have to tell a story, and often times they do it in crazy and unique ways. Just because Shakespeare uses a sonnet to declare his love while The Bruiser uses his finishing movie, the Bruise Bomb, does it make one “better?” They both have to get their point across in some way. I’m not really sure it does. Just watching people throw fake punches would get boring without some kind of story. 

Yes, there are those that take it too seriously. The event my friends and I attended did include at least one person being escorted out because he believed that the people in the ring were really fighting. Here’s the thing with that, though, even though it’s “fake” and the real better wrestler doesn’t always win, these guys still have to work out. Let’s just say the guy doing the taunting wouldn’t exactly be able to stand up to the 6 foot guy with muscles on his muscles. So maybe it was best the smaller security guards managed to throw him out before the bigger guys managed to get his hands on him.

Overall though, it’s just a fun time. The event we attended, sadly ended badly as Blackwallstreet managed to maintain their dominance by retaining all of their titles, setting up another exciting adventure later for the good guys to win them back from the bad guys. 

Like I said not the best stuff in the world, but even Shakespeare wrote a play where a bunch of guys are baked into a pie and fed to their mother, so even he understood the importance of a heel turn every once in a while. 

Play vs. Book: Neverwhere

You know when you first meet someone that fascinates you? Not necessarily love at first sight, but more like... fascination. Not at first or second or even third sight, but you meet a person, and through constant interaction or thinking about something they’ve said you just want to spend time with them, and pick their brain further. You want to hang out with them because they get you, the real you, not the person you pretend to be in social situation so no one knows how quirky you are. (Back before Zoey Deschanel made quirky “cool.”)

That was Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman for me. 

Quick sidenote, yes, I’m well aware that this was a BBC Miniseries, book, and radio play, so it’s kind of interesting to think that it has crossed through most mediums (Neverwhere: The Musical! doesn’t exist, but it should.) But when I was first introduced to the land of Neverwhere, it was through book form, and it was after reading American Gods. And while I still love American Gods in a different way (I’ve got enough love to go around) Neverwhere holds a very special place in my heart because its was so unlike anything I’d eve read before. Because I was first introduced to this as a book, I’m approaching this post in that way.

So, naturally, when I found out that the Rorschach Theatre was going to do an adaptation of the novel, I was all like... they’d better get the Marquis de Carabas correct, because he’s my favorite character. Also Door. Also Croup and Vandermar. Well, everyone really. I get really invested in fictional characters. (Spoiler: They get them all right, beautifully so.)

Quick sidenote numbah 2: This isn’t a review of the play, partly because I know the actress who played Door... the wonderful and talented Sarah Taurchini, and partly because I want to talk about the experience of it all. But while this isn’t an official review, I can tell you as a fan who’s read the book more than once, had to replace his copy more than once, and who can quote an unnatural amount of it, I HIGHLY recommend this play. You should go get tickets now, because I went to a sold out show and I promise you it’s only going to get more sold out-ier. And keep in mind that if it was even a little off, this whole post would just be a picture of me sobbing.

The plot, for those of who who haven’t read it yet (but will after this post) it’s about a man named Richard Mayhew who lives in London, finds a young girl lying in the road. After he decides to help her out, he finds that... you know what? It’s basically Alice in Wonderland as described to Joss Whedon by Neil Gaiman. (In my mind, Joss Whedon is giving him notes.) Yeah. It’s that awesome. It’s also hard to describe without giving too much away. 

Movies, plays, and books are very different mediums. Movies show a lot. Rather than imagining what it would look like when a robot turns into a car, you get to see it, along with Megan Fox and that other guy. Books rely completely on your imagination. You get to imagine the robot turning into a car, and the person driving it is always Megan Fox and not that other guy who’s name I’m too lazy to look up right now. Books can also expand on the world of a movie (like Neverwhere did), unless you’re Peter Jackson, then somehow you can use the world of the movie to expand on the book. But plays... plays are very different. If you saw the strings holding up Tobey Maguire in Spiderman, you’d ask for your money back. If you saw the strings holding up the actor playing Spiderman in Turn Off The Dark, you accept the fact that you are watching the play, get lost in the world, and just enjoy watching Spiderman swing above your head. (and not plummet to his doom in the most cursed play since the Scottish One.)

Great plays do a lot more with less. Especially somewhere like the Rorschach Theatre, which isn’t the largest theater in the world (but manages to make it feel like you’re watching something that is on a much bigger stage). They didn't waste an inch of the performance space. The stage was built around the audience, so at any given time the action could be taking place behind you, in front of you... it was the perfect way to bring everyone into the extremely large, detailed world of London Below. (Where our heroes spend most of their time.) For most of the play, I felt I felt like I was in the action, an observer in the world. Not an observer of the play, but an observer of the world in general... like I was reading the book. (This is probably the highest compliment I can give to a play.) But mostly, it showed without telling everything. There are moments that couldn’t be translated easily to stage, these were easily conveyed through lighting, voiceovers, the actors themselves...

Speaking of the actors, I noted that I expressed concern over actors taking over parts, which I feel is different than say, a film. Actors in a play are closer, more “real” than in a film. But I have to say again: they were spectacular. The creepiness of the villains, the befuddlement of our main character, the snarkiness of the Marquis, and the confidence and heroism of Door... all fantastic. They just worked together to bring this story to life in a way that I didn’t really know was possible. (Yeah, it's sort of review-y. I mean, the experience of seeing one of my favorite books turned into a play was awesome, but at the end of the day it was still a good play.)

Great books live in the world of the imagination. Plays help expand on that (all without the help of CGI) and give you just enough that you know you’re looking at something that’s not real, but you can carry yourself into that world. I’d have to say on all levels, Neverwhere at the Rorschach Theatre more than delivers. Wow. That ending was extremely review-y. But I can’t contain my enthusiasm for a play that managed to deliver a great story while not telling me what I saw in my imagination... just expanded on it.

Neverwhere is currently playing at the Rorschach Theatre until September 15th. Tickets tend to go fast, so you should buy up your tickets today. And if you’ve already seen it, go see it again. And if you haven't read the book yet, this post ends now so you can go read it instead of this.

http://www.rorschachtheatre.com/neverwhere/

Acting! First You Must Make Your Voice High Like This, Then Go Low, Like This...

        Another semester down!

As I have mentioned, I took a class in Theatre. More specifically, how to be a Theatre Teacher. A little bit because when I started the class I had been a George Mason Employee and I wanted to take the class and it was free. A little bit because Theatre is really an overlooked art form for anyone who speaks in front of people, and that’s just about everyone except those scientists who work in basements creating some of the coolest things on the planet but then give it to other people who do the presenting. And who probably took theatre! FULL CIRCLE, BABY!

Moving on.

When I first started the class, I kind of felt a bit like an outsider. Everyone knew everyone else. In my zeal to sign up for the class, I’d neglected to see that it was actually the second part of a two part course, and pretty much everyone met and knew each other during that first class. (Also, theatre is notoriously close knit so... yeah. ) I was just sort of the oddball English guy that sat in the corner and went to the Professor after the first day of class and explained my situation. Her name is Mary Lechter, and I’ve never felt more included than when she let me know that I should stick around, and it would be fun. And boy, was it.

It was actually the more informative of classes I’ve taken over the past few semester. We’d get a unit, something that had to be taught, then we’d have to make an entire lesson plan around this unit, down to how much time we’d spend on each thing, then we’d pick one of those things and teach the class. It ended up being a lot of fun, we’d spend time annoying the other classes that were learning to math or something like that. (Take THAT, Mason Scheduling that won’t put us in a theatre classroom.)

I really enjoyed the time I spent in the class and the time I spent getting to know everyone. I’d like to think that not spending all that time not taking theatre classes let me think outside the box and do unique activities and things other people didn’t think of. I don’t know if it actually was, but I had a good time doing it. I can even remember the dark period, when things were falling apart, this was still a groovy class to come to, and a good time where I was able to cut loose, and the times I did have enough and I had to dread what came next... well it really helped me go through that.

It’s rare that a class ends, and I wish I were still taking it. Tuesday mornings were horrible... I was running around until 10 at night... but man... I’m going to miss having that class on Monday nights.

So, now it’s on to what’s next for my teaching adventure. Next up I’ll be chronicling my adventures in attempting the Praxis 2, then hopefully soon I will be chronicling my adventures in student teaching. That’s what’s next for me.

Of Teaching Theatre and Yankees Fans.

    Back when I was beautiful, I wanted to do a lot more with the theatre. I’ve mentioned it before, but for newcomers I spell it “theatre” because that’s the way my old Theatre Teacher, RL Mirabal (That’s Mr. Mirabal to you) would spell it, so. But in college I took directing, acting and playwriting courses, mostly because I hoped to be a playwright one day. Then there’s that old joke.

Q. What’s the difference between a pizza and a playwright?

A. A pizza can feed a family of four.

    So I did the responsible thing and got a job in data entry, and sort of gave up on my dream of being a writer/beautiful until of course I started this blog and writing, more, now I have lofty goals of writing something magnificent enough to be published and so I can meet all of my writing heroes.
   
    But that brings us back to the idea of theatre. Why am I discussing theatre (on a Bad Shakespeare blog) today of all days, on the first day of Fall classes? Well, I’ll tell you why, you curious folk. (and I guess the folk that aren’t too curious.) I’m discussing it because I am taking a class on the teaching of Theatre that starts tonight! (Just like Mr. Mirabal, except I’m not a Yankees fan.)

    Now, as it turns out I’m not qualified to get a certificate in teaching theatre. While I’ve taken a lot of the classes required in undergraduate, way back in the days of “dial up” (kids, ask your parents) but I neglected my technical theatre skills. I mean, I learned some while in High School, back even BEFORE there was “dial up” (it was a dark, ignorant time when we had to walk to libraries to Google information) but I really don’t retain a whole lot of it. It you put me in front of a board today I could eventually run it ok (with hilarious results) but alas, I just don’t have them.

    “So why do it?” my you are all an inquisitive bunch today. I’m doing it because I enjoyed my time taking theatre, and because I denied it to myself for too long. I took the responsible path out, and now I feel as though a big part of me is now gone. And while I’m still going to be responsible, I’m going to take time to enjoy myself. At the end of the day, my degree will still say “Michael B. Hock, English Teacher.” (Now THAT’s the title of a crime novel.)

    I mentioned a few posts back about how I went to go see Children in the Mist, a Horror Opera. I enjoyed it. And it reminded me of how much I missed seeing a production on the stage. The fact that a friend of mine wrote it... I miss that experience, too. I’ve written a play. I’ve seen it performed. There’s no experience like it.

    This doesn’t mean I love English any less. No, I’m still Englishing. But what it means is that I’m going to do something for myself, and re-immerse myself in the theatre world.  Because I enjoy it.