"Look at Me, Look at Me, Look at Me"

The following post was composed while commuting home on the bus. It has nothing to do with babies...imagine that.



I am a fairly extroverted person. I like hanging out with people and like spending time talking to people. We were discussing this in therapy last week because, while I need people, my DH really doesn't. At least he doesn't need people like I do.

Our therapist feels we both have trust issues and that it causes my DH to not reach out to people. So what's the deal with me? I had a horrific childhood and yet I still yearn for human companionship. DH had a great childhood and he's the opposite. He doesn't want to be noticed and I do.

A few weeks ago, after a matinee, my actor friend James(see above), who played opposite me in Plaza Suite, and I were discussing theatre (as we narcissistic actors are want to do)and came across a possible childhood treatment/future actor connection.

James told me about how he was teased horribly as a boy as was I (How could I not know this after being friends with the man for 16 years?). So why would these berated children become extroverts? Why would we want to be looked at so much? Exactly for that reason I suppose. We want to be paid attention to, to be noted, to be appreciated. We were left behind and ignored or ridiculed as kids and now we are praised and admired (hopefully). We force people to stare at us for two hours or more, demand the attention we are owed.

-Whoa I totally sound like a Sondheim musical there or a Miller play, "Attention must be paid!"

Anyway, it was a light bulb moment for both of us and something I've never really thought about. All I ever knew is that theatre saved me. It pulled me from a dark pit of despair.

On stage I feel alive and free. On stage I am the true Jennifer and man, she's kick ass. I wish I could be her all the time.

I suppose that's another therapy session.

Dustin Hoffman on why he acts:

Well, one day as I was working with Lawrence Olivier, I asked him that question. Why do we do this?? And he replied many times, Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! Look at me! I got goose bumps. But that's true, it's all about being somewhat the center of attention, this is why I love doing interviews, meeting people. Look at me.

Plaza Suite Review

MPC Theatre Co. delivers highly entertaining 'Plaza Suite'
By NATHALIE PLOTKIN
Herald Correspondent
Article Last Updated: 05/15/2008 01:51:27 AM PDT


The MPC Theatre Company's brilliantly acted and directed side-splitting realization of Neil Simon's "Plaza Suite," which uses its setting to tie together three widely disparate yet highly comedic human relationships, makes for a delightful theatrical experience.
Love, marriage, honesty, maturity, sex — you name it — are all familiar themes present in a script which is highly entertaining.

Director De Bono had a sterling cast to work with. The sheer professionalism of his actors shone through at all times, no matter what situation they had to bring to life, and their wit and humor twinkled and brought out the available material to excellent effect.

Actually, "Plaza Suite" consists of three one-act plays which are complete entities, but which occupy the same space.

Room 719 as such, is only important in the opening act. Teresa Del Piero has reserved it in order to spend the night where she and her husband spent their honeymoon. However, 23 years later, the bloom of their marriage has disappeared.

Del Piero's role is written so that she apparently lives in a state of confusion as to dates, ages and numbers in general.

She has to overcome the perversities of the role the author has created in order to evoke sympathy for herself.

She is a very polished actress who inhabits a difficult and sometimes frustrating part and does it with charm and an underlying strength.

As the no-longer-loving husband, James Brady ably projects self-centered vanity and selfishness as he demonstrates his withdrawal from his marriage.

Room 719 means nothing to him since he has found another romantic interest and coldly acts accordingly.

In Act 2, Brady is cast as a successful Hollywood director in New York on business and who looks up his high school sweetheart of 17 years ago, hoping for a little afternoon dalliance. He neatly plays down and restrains his wolfishness, but his egotism comes through.

When Jennifer Muniz, married and the mother of three, arrives, she is apparently unsophisticated and shows an almost childish awareness of his stature and success. She reads all the fan magazines and knows every detail of his activities.

Brady is a smooth seducer and Muniz is an amusingly tipsy and willing victim. Together they go through all the motions leading to a final stage blackout in the bedroom.

But then comes Act 3, where the author goes all out in a splendidly human and unbridled, hilarious climax to the occupancy of room 719.

Even though the humor was prominent in the first two acts, here it is nonstop and borders on slapstick comedy.

The parents of a bride who has gotten cold feet just minutes before her very elaborate and expensive wedding and locked herself in the bathroom, are magnificently personified by Denise Guarnery and Gary Bolen.

They totally engage attention as they colorfully and humanly vent their frustrations and anger at the moment of truth.

Guarnery, as the mother who tries to be sweet and sensible while trying to convince the bride to come out, and Bolen, vacillating between the heavy father counting costs and then physically to reach the recalcitant bride, are marvels of pitch-perfect timing and their physical activity is totally hilarious.

Actually, this act alone would be worth the price of a ticket, but there is much to commend in the first two acts of what turns out to be a somewhat uneven vehicle.

Laugh-provoking one-liners are present throughout each act and point out with typical Simon humor the human elements of each story.

The supporting cast is as polished and professional as the major players.

Taylor Thorngate appears as a manhunting secretary and again as the reluctant bride. Brady Shilstone is an understanding bell hop and later is the masterful bridegroom. Jeromy Rutter is a sympathetic waiter. All do very well.

Nicole Bryant Stephens' design for Room 719 is handsome and the view of lit up skyscrapers is a clever and impressive detail.

Gloria Mattos Hughes' costumes are very appropriate, particularly in the third act. The bride is beautiful.

So, take a trip to the Plaza Hotel, Suite 719 and relax, laugh and enjoy the show. GO!

Rest in Peace, Dear Hearts

This week has just been too hard. Two loses.

I just found out Jerry Gill passed away yesterday from liver cancer. Very few people even knew he was sick. The family wanted it that way I was told. This just breaks my heart.

Jerry was really the first director who truly believed in me and gave me a chance. I didn't look the part of Honey in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf but he cast me out a whole room full of great women due to my talent. Because of that role, doors really opened to me. I will forever be grateful.

I'll never forget the "Freaky Fridays", my 2 year stint of hanging with "GillStone", and the love and support I received from him. He will truly be missed.

I also lost my sweet baby Daisy on Wednesday night. I'll write more about that later. I just can't deal with any more death at the moment.

Proof Review

Unicorn opens theater season with attention-grabbing play
By NATHALIE PLOTKIN

Herald Correspondent

To open the 2007 drama season, the Unicorn Theatre really scored a winner with their production of "Proof," David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play in the Carl Cherry Center in Carmel.

Thought-provoking and audience attention-grabbing, this contemporary and lively script captures interest and holds it as it proceeds along a rather convoluted path in telling its emotionally meaty story.

There are several flashbacks and they are carefully listed in the program to help the audience keep track of events which would have a puzzling lack of continuity otherwise.

"Proof" tells the story of a young woman (Catherine) who has taken on the task of being the caregiver for her mentally ill father (Robert).

She has dropped out of college to do so and since her father was a mathematical genius, she is afraid that not only has she inherited his genius, but also his insanity.

The play opens with a dialogue between father and daughter on the eve of his funeral.

She sees him, as does the audience, and she speaks to him, but the question is raised about the reality of the scene and whether or not she is hallucinating. Yet there is a real bottle of warm champagne in the scene.

There is another, older, daughter (Claire) who walked away from the situation, but who took over the responsibility of the financial support of her father and sister.

She is a self-contained, emotionally detached person who is interested in doing right for her possibly dysfunctional sibling.

Then there is Hal, a former graduate student of the father who is attracted to the younger sister, but who wants to find some mathematical inspiration and career enrichment by going through the 130 notebooks the professor scribbled in during his illness.

Skip Kadish as the mentally ill father must create an almost chameleon-like emotional persona which he handles very skillfully.

In a heartrending scene when his illness reasserts itself after he has been in remission for a year, he is masterful.

Jennifer Muniz (Catherine) has the role of the willingly self-sacrificing daughter who must not only care tenderly for a difficult sick man, but must also face her fears about herself.

Stony faced, rigidly postured and coldly resistant to offers of help, she portrays the tortured inner depths of personality that make her riveting as she emphatically refuses to accept well-meant advice.

She captures sympathy as she struggles with her internal doubts and demons.

Lynette Graves is the older sister who wants to "do right" by Catherine. Her strong sense of duty is very well projected and she bears up under the coldly vituperative rejection she is the target of.

She shows how her patience is sorely tried, yet her underlying hidden warmth and caring strength are apparent.

When, in two major face-to-face, almost knock-down and drag-out confrontations, Muniz and Graves reveal the full force of the differences and resentments they have toward each other, there was crackling and powerful electricity coming from the stage.

Omar Hussain as Hal, the graduate student who cares for Catherine, also shows strength and purpose in facing up to the intractible reactions of Catherine.

He too, is warm and understanding and there is a well-projected maturity of character which adds humanity to the problems he is faced with. Still, his motivation is questionable as to its true reasons.

Director Carey Crockett guided his fine cast through an intelligently conceived and very well-integrated performance except for some seemingly overlong scene changes.

These were four special people bringing life to the author's ideas in realistic, yet emotionally colored performances, which at times included adult language.

Crockett's sense of theatrical proportion made this a fine beginning for the year and a memorable play that should not be missed.

Math Geek and the Countdown

Three months from today I'll be a hitched lady again. I think about all I have to do in the next few months and it makes my head spin. It doesn't help that I am neck deep in a show and immersed in fifth grade (I'm all about the activism and colonial studies these days).

Proof has opened with possibly the shortest rehearsal period I have experienced and the largest line load I have ever had. I thought Communicating Doors was bad with the one five minute scene being the only one I wasn't in. I think the one scene in Proof is about three minutes. At least I don't feel emotionally wasted afterwards like Our Town though should I with this one?

It's been great to work with my "dad" again. I think I need to start having contracts that dictate that my dad has to be Skip and my mom has to be Theresa. It's nice to feel close to people like that. We've gotten some nice feedback from people who liked our show better than the movie (not hard) and the London production (say what?) so we'll see what happens.

Ack it's late, what the hell am I doing up?

Eberhardt has a groupie

Classic 'Our Town' still resonates in MPC production

By NATHALIE PLOTKIN

Herald Correspondent

Our Town" worked its subtle magic once again in the MPC Theatre Company's production of Thornton Wilder's American dramatic classic.

Written in 1938, Wilder broke with theatrical production methods. He specified a bare stage with only a few tables and chairs as scenery and no props, relying rather on sound effects and actors miming their actions to carry the plot forward.

There is a Stage Manager who talks to the audience and keeps them informed as the play progresses, which was quite an innovation at the time. This interactive device has been much imitated ever since.

But, times are now drastically different. The world has changed in the way we live and the things we take for granted, still the feelings of humanity presented during the three acts of "Our Town" have held on very strongly and feelingly.

Throughout the evening they endured and ultimately reached out emotionally as they built the story slowly and subtly.

The Stage Manager, authoritatively played by Mark Shilstone-Laurent, sets the scene by describing the physical layout of Grover's Corners, N.H.

Then he introduces the players in the drama and his observations are the connecting links for the various events that ensue.

This was surely the playwright's inspired method of avoiding cumbersome set changes.

The first act consists of an enactment of an ordinary, uneventful day in a rural town.

You meet the two families whose lives are depicted. Dr. Gibbs (Jerry Gill) is the overworked, old-fashioned, compassionate country doctor (he makes house calls).

Denise Guarnery, his loving and earnest wife, is an equally old-fashioned figure of a loving, caring help mate and mother.

They have a teen-age baseball playing son, George, and a strong-minded young daughter, Rebecca.

Their neighbors, the Webbs, are an equally hard working couple. Mr. Webb is the editor of the town newspaper and Skip Kadish makes him an intelligent and understanding man.

Mrs. Webb (Sally Burns), another wife and mother typical of the era, was firm but lovingly concerned about taking care of her teenage daughter Emily and a young son, Wally.

As the act progresses, the Stage Manager fleshes out the details of their lives so that in the second act, which shows how the teenagers fell in love and married, they had become people we knew.

George Gibbs (Jason Mask) and Emily Webb (Jennifer Muniz) are two very endearing players.

Their attraction to each other is acted with simple charm and a gentleness that is seldom seen now. Their ability to show their emotions and fears at the idea of marriage feel very real.

Finally, Wilder draws all the threads together in the third act, which is the emotional climax of the play.

Set in the town cemetery seven years later, we learn that Emily had died in childbirth, a situation far more common in the early 1900s.

It is her interaction with the other inhabitants of the cemetery and her realization that you can't go back to regain the appreciation of life that was lacking when you had it, that brings the play to its warm, yet heart-wounding ending. It truly touches a chord.

Director Peter De Bono had a competent cast to work with and he paced the play so that it built in intensity as it went along.

At first, there was a rather too-deliberate pace, but as the plot deepened and the involvement of interest became established, it all came together very convincingly.

But, there were times when the cast seemed to forget there was an audience out there and did not project very well.

Some amplification would help, particularly when the action was toward the rear of the stage.

However this was not true of Peter Eberhardt, who made the role of the frustrated alcoholic choir director a standout part.

His bitterness was palpable and Michael Robbins made the cameo role of the long-winded Professor Willard both funny and audible.

As always, the details that help make a production a success were very well carried out. Sound, lights, costumes were all exemplary and the large cast had strength and depth.

If you would like a nostalgic "Our Town" fix, here's an opportunity to get it.

Goodbye Grover's Corners, Goodbye Emily

Damn I can't even type the subject line without tearing up. This show has been such an emotional, creative journey for me. I have had the opportunity to work with some of the best people, and to quote Jason, we really have become a family. In all the shows I've done in the past 15 years, I've never seen a cast, or director for that matter, so choked up with tears at closing. I couldn't even look at Skip. Jason...well you're the best.

I've said it before and I'll say it one last time, I never would have thought 20 years ago when I first read Our Town that I'd actually have the opportunity to play Emily. I'll be storing my script next to the paperbook copy I stole from school in 7th grade where I underlined all of Emily's lines.

This show, I think, will be a turning point for me, much as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was. I have a show lined up for January (Alex is going to kill me) and others in the horizon. I have received the most amazing compliments from everyone, so much so I don't even know what to say. All I can say is thank you. Thank you for the support and for moving me and letting me move you.

So long Emily. You have touched my heart and I will forever carry you with me.

"Goodbye. Goodbye world, goodbye Grover's Corners, and Mama and Papa. To clocks ticking and my butternut tree, and to Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee and new ironed dresses and hot baths. And sleeping and waking up. Oh world you're far to wonderful for anyone to ever realize."

Our Town Opens

Our Town at MPC's Morgan Stock Stage.

October 19, 2006

In 1938, audiences were startled by Thornton Wilder's barebones production of Our Town. By dispensing with the normal trappings of theater, it broke down the traditional narrative form and became one of the first widely-hailed postmodern theatrical classics. Nearly 70 years later, it's the writing that continues to mesmerize audience and invigorate directors like MPC's Peter DeBono. [RM]

8pm/Fri-Sat; 2pm/Sun. The Morgan Stock Stage at the MPC Theatre Company, 980 Fremont St., Monterey. $18/in advance; $25/door; $20/seniors; $15/young adults (20 and under); $10/children 12 and under. 646-4213 or Ticketguys.com.

Our Town and Stuff...

Man it was a week.

Much sadness for Peter, Cliff, and their families this week. Jerry was such a neat guy. I had always wanted to work with him and we would talk about it now and then. He loved my Helen Kane impersonation and would always give me the best compliments and feedback on my performances. I know he will be missed greatly in the theatre community.

Our first week off book for Our Town. The week started off well but of course as we got closer and closer to act three I was toast. Why oh why can't I memorize like I used to? Damn plur!! LOL It's been good times though. Jason and Mark make me laugh regularly, something I'm always happy to do. (Though not on stage Mark!!! "Kiss the bitch". Heh)

Fifth grade has been very busy and amusing. Our days are over in what seems like two hours. I never seem to have enough time to finish everything I need to do with them, which sucks because it's a lot. They are however, pretty much the same as they were in second grade, just taller. My little friend in second grade continues to be my little friend in fifth grade. At least he's respectful of me. He told the after school aide that I was awesome. Current events have also proven to be an interesting weekly event. Why this past Friday we had discussions ranging from the politics of nuclear disarmament and our lovely president, the dangers of kitty litter to pregnant women, birth defects, and hermaphrodites, breast cancer and nipple piercings. Yeah you read right. I stopped that last one right away but man Fifth graders are interesting.