What to do when critics get it wrong.

(For Erica who apparently reads this blog ☺)

I grabbed the wrong book from the library yesterday. Mechanics Library—probably my favorite library (and I have been in Chicago’s Newberry and Minneapolis’s beautiful new downtown branch)—is only four blocks away from A.C.T.’s offices and school, but it still an outing, especially when we are frantically trying to put together our study guide and production program for At Home at the Zoo. For a dramaturg, returning with the wrong library book is kind of like a member of the pit crew putting a square tire on a race car in the middle of a big race. . . only not quite as dangerous.

Worse still, I didn’t have time to remedy my error. The book was a different edition of what was requested by our resident dramaturg, and he assured me the substitution was adequate, but, needless to say, I was miffed at myself all day. And there isn’t really even time for me to be miffed. It’s the last show of the season and that project we pushed back that one day back in October, and then that other one we pushed back half a day in November/December/Jan./Feb.Mar.Apr. . . . they’re all making themselves felt now: “Remember me asshole! You thought I wouldn’t be back to bite you in the ass? You sad sucker, don’t you know: I always come back. . . ”

But it’s hard to be too much of a negative nancy right now because we just opened a beautiful new José Rivera new play, Boleros for the Disenchanted, that we are all so proud of, that the audiences are absolutely adoring, and that the critics . . . well, they got it wrong (My brain begins to turn a Hulk-like shade of green). I not only appreciate what critics do to demand higher standards from theaters, to protect audiences (especially during hard financial times), and to keep the dramatic arts firmly in the consciousness of the public (even those who do not attend). But also, a fairly harsh judge myself, I usually find myself agreeing with the less sympathetic commentaries provided, or, at the very least, understanding the perspectives of someone whose job it is taste-test for the plebeian kings lest they be poisoned.

With this show, however, they got it wrong. And the great thing about being a critic is that there is no legitimate forum for rebuttal. Even directly refuting their reviews on, say, a personal blog is considered taboo. All I can do is show you this and hope you come see the show:

Hulk Smash: my tired brain.

In part because last week we had a Tuesday deadline, and those are awful business: all that pressure and anxiety constricted into the first day and a half, and then you still have to come in Wednesday and start on a new project,

in part because Rachel just finished her second semester of school as is suddenly on “summer break,” whereas I, really for the first time in my life (could that be true?) have no promise of such an off-season,

in part because our current show, the amazingly beautiful/sexy/smart Boleros for the Disenchanted by the ridiculously talented/humble/nice José Rivera, has a tight three-week run, pushing all of our deadlines for the next show, Edward Albee’s At Home at the Zoo, up a week,

and in part because At Home at the Zoo is the final show of an eight-show, emotional roller-coaster of a season, in which we have evaluated and re-evaluated every element of the two departments I straddle (publications and literary/artistic),

my professional brain is running on fumes.

One final contributing factor to this mental exhaustion: I’m not sure Edward Albee likes dramaturgy attached to his shows. Infamously protective of his creations–”[The text] is a suggestion, yes, and pay absolute attention to it! . . . I tell actors at the beginning of any new production, whether I’m directing or not: ‘Do whatever you want as long as you end up with exactly what I intended.’ It gives people the illusion of leeway.”–Albee also believes everything the audience needs to appreciate and understand his plays is in the text, and that the they should (as much as possible) enter his plays as if it is their first time to the theater. He’s anti-context! What’s a dramaturg to do?

Of course, there is really plenty to do: if the audience doesn’t need anything for the play, we’ll give ‘em interesting information around the play, and those topics are never difficult to find on the sidelines of Mr. Albee’s work. Now if I could only somehow resolve those pesky looming-deadlines and exhausted-brain troubles, I’ll be all set to start a Monday.

Hulk Smash: Delta Airlines(or, I am writing this through the fog of exhaustion that can only be produced by air travel)

Last night, I thought the light snow was a fitting farewell to my Thanksgiving visit home to good ol’ St. Louis. I had appreciated the piles of browned leaves and the crispness to the autumn air. I was not going to get an autumn in San Francisco, and certainly not flurries.

I am less excited in hindsight: that light dusting, while not accumulating on the ground, blanketed my plane before its suggested 7:55am departure. This would not have been a big deal, but apparently it takes an hour to de-ice a plane. Somehow this is “nature’s fault” and thus the airline is not responsible for the additional costs associated with the missed connection that followed. If we had not agreed to fly into San Jose (an extra 30 miles, 2 hours, and 1 train ride south), we would currently be paying for the cheapest motel room Salt Lake City offers. Sorry, Delta, but blaming nature for the unnatural slowness of your de-icer, while planes from other airlines are zooming off behind us…it’s a bit of a stretch.

Another discovery: if your Delta ticket tells you your departure time is 11:00am (which was the departure time for our connection flight to San Francisco), it really means “the flight TAKES OFF at 11:00am.” You have to be there at least 10 minutes early (usually not a problem, I grant you). This was explained to us by the very nice lady who was left behind at the lonely desk like an elderly Eskimo to explain to us why the rest of our day was going to suck: “We always leave the gate 10 minutes before take off. This time we waited until 7 minutes before, but then we learned that your plane HAD LANDED we realized it was going to be more than 7 minutes.” Well, thanks, for waiting until we landed? That showed you at least tried? We to her station and the closed and bolted B06 Door, in fact, 8 minutes later. At 11:01, after our first flight had left an hour late because someone couldn’t figure out how to unkink a hose, this lovely lady was trying to sell us on Delta’s punctuality.

Our flight to San Jose had a departure time of 1:40. We began boarding at 1:15. Everyone was on by 1:30. Nobody was rushing from a connecting flight. Did we pull away like the Delta handbook instructs we MUST? Nope. We left the gate 4 minutes after we were apparently supposed to be in the air.

I don’t deny this was undoubtedly a busy day, but I don’t care. Liars piss me off. Especially when I give them 600 bucks to get me places on time.