Some of you may have visited the website ReviewPlays.Com and saw the ugly message that warned: THIS IS AN ATTACK SITE!
This was put up by Firefox and Google because they claim to have found some files were infected with a virus - specifically the interview with Ray Bradbury.
As it was, no files were infected, but someone had linked their website to ours and that website was infected, so we were smeared with the same crayola and thrown into the same pot!
It was an ordeal to remove the malicious tag. EVERY file had to be downloaded from the host site - cleaned through a McAfee anti virus scan and then reloaded back to the web host. Then we had to request a review by Google and they checked every file to make sure we were "clean". This took several days.
Moral of the story - be careful who you hook up with along the way. You never know if they may pass on a virus (or other malady) to you.
Now you can go back to www.ReviewPlays.Com and enjoy the site worry free - we have no viruses - BUT watch out for the other guys who are linking to us!
Remember the good old days of newspapers?
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Another Winner
From Athol Fugard
By Cynthia Citron
For Reviewplays.com
And iTunes at ww.airsla.org/broadcasts/theater_reviewsrss.xml
You might think that a 77-year-old playwright who has written a highly-acclaimed, prize-winning play (and sometimes two) nearly every year for 53 years might be running out of steam by now. Well, not so with South African/English/American playwright Athol Fugard, who has just written what, in my view, is the best work of his career. And that’s saying a lot for the man who wrote such blockbuster dramas as “The Blood Knot,” “Boesman and Lena,” “Sizwe Bansi is Dead,” “Master Harold and the Boys” and 2004’s “Exits and Entrances.”
“Coming Home,” Fugard’s latest play is now having its West Coast premiere at the theater that he calls his “artistic home in the United States”: The Fountain Theatre in West Hollywood. Once again, Stephen Sachs, co-artistic director of the Fountain, has taken on the pleasant task of directing Fugard’s play with one of the best teams of performers to be seen on any stage in a very long time.
The woman who is “Coming Home” is Deidrie Henry, who was so electrifying in the Pulitzer Prize-contending play “Yellowman” in 2002. Here again she is mesmerizing as Fugard’s heroine, Veronica Jonkers, who is returning to her childhood home after a futile decade in Capetown trying to succeed as a singer. (In real life, Henry’s sweetly melodic voice won her an Outstanding Vocalist award for her cabaret debut in New York.)
Veronica brings with her a son (played by Timothy Taylor as a five-year-old and Matthew Elam at 10) and striking memories of the years she spent in this dilapidated shanty with her loving grandfather, Oupa Jonkers (Adolphus Ward), and her childhood friend, Alfred Witbooi (Thomas Silcott), an exuberant man-child who is still brimming over with kindness and concern. In two extraordinary performances, the men, Ward and Silcott, match the phenomenal Deidrie Henry beat for beat. It’s a brilliant tour de force a trois right before your eyes.
Oupa, who has died and left his home to Veronica, turns up periodically as a wise old ghost, delivering, in one instance, a symphony in words about the life-affirming joy of planting a seed and watching it grow. Veronica, who has obviously learned much from his perennial optimism, is able to maintain a brave face even when she tells the sympathetic Alfred the sad tales of the life she had lived in Capetown before she came home.
“Coming Home” is a familiarly predictable tale, set in post-apartheid South Africa, when the newly freed peoples are beginning to realize that all their extravagant hopes and dreams for a bright new future are not going to be immediately forthcoming. But among this distinctive family, the dignity, the kindness, the love, and even the hope still remains.
“Coming Home” is set in a one-room tin-roofed shack designed by Laura Fine Hawkes that manages to be both wretched and homey at the same time. It’s a wonderful setting for this warm and beautiful play.
I can’t begin to tell you how much I loved this play and its performers, and how emphatically I recommend it to you. If I were prone to rate these things, I would give it a firm five papayas! Or, as they call them in South Africa, five “paw-paws.”
“Coming Home” will continue at the Fountain Theatre, the home of always-outstanding productions, at 5060 Fountain Avenue, in Los Angeles, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 through August 29th. Call (323) 663-1525 for reservations.
From Athol Fugard
By Cynthia Citron
For Reviewplays.com
And iTunes at ww.airsla.org/broadcasts/theater_reviewsrss.xml
You might think that a 77-year-old playwright who has written a highly-acclaimed, prize-winning play (and sometimes two) nearly every year for 53 years might be running out of steam by now. Well, not so with South African/English/American playwright Athol Fugard, who has just written what, in my view, is the best work of his career. And that’s saying a lot for the man who wrote such blockbuster dramas as “The Blood Knot,” “Boesman and Lena,” “Sizwe Bansi is Dead,” “Master Harold and the Boys” and 2004’s “Exits and Entrances.”
“Coming Home,” Fugard’s latest play is now having its West Coast premiere at the theater that he calls his “artistic home in the United States”: The Fountain Theatre in West Hollywood. Once again, Stephen Sachs, co-artistic director of the Fountain, has taken on the pleasant task of directing Fugard’s play with one of the best teams of performers to be seen on any stage in a very long time.
The woman who is “Coming Home” is Deidrie Henry, who was so electrifying in the Pulitzer Prize-contending play “Yellowman” in 2002. Here again she is mesmerizing as Fugard’s heroine, Veronica Jonkers, who is returning to her childhood home after a futile decade in Capetown trying to succeed as a singer. (In real life, Henry’s sweetly melodic voice won her an Outstanding Vocalist award for her cabaret debut in New York.)
Veronica brings with her a son (played by Timothy Taylor as a five-year-old and Matthew Elam at 10) and striking memories of the years she spent in this dilapidated shanty with her loving grandfather, Oupa Jonkers (Adolphus Ward), and her childhood friend, Alfred Witbooi (Thomas Silcott), an exuberant man-child who is still brimming over with kindness and concern. In two extraordinary performances, the men, Ward and Silcott, match the phenomenal Deidrie Henry beat for beat. It’s a brilliant tour de force a trois right before your eyes.
Oupa, who has died and left his home to Veronica, turns up periodically as a wise old ghost, delivering, in one instance, a symphony in words about the life-affirming joy of planting a seed and watching it grow. Veronica, who has obviously learned much from his perennial optimism, is able to maintain a brave face even when she tells the sympathetic Alfred the sad tales of the life she had lived in Capetown before she came home.
“Coming Home” is a familiarly predictable tale, set in post-apartheid South Africa, when the newly freed peoples are beginning to realize that all their extravagant hopes and dreams for a bright new future are not going to be immediately forthcoming. But among this distinctive family, the dignity, the kindness, the love, and even the hope still remains.
“Coming Home” is set in a one-room tin-roofed shack designed by Laura Fine Hawkes that manages to be both wretched and homey at the same time. It’s a wonderful setting for this warm and beautiful play.
I can’t begin to tell you how much I loved this play and its performers, and how emphatically I recommend it to you. If I were prone to rate these things, I would give it a firm five papayas! Or, as they call them in South Africa, five “paw-paws.”
“Coming Home” will continue at the Fountain Theatre, the home of always-outstanding productions, at 5060 Fountain Avenue, in Los Angeles, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 through August 29th. Call (323) 663-1525 for reservations.
Mark Twain, Unknown
And Uncensored
By Cynthia Citron
Every once in a while an actor will come along who can capture and define a specific role so uniquely as to make that character his own forever---or at least for that generation. I’m thinking particularly of Jose Ferrer as Cyrano de Bergerac. Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins. And Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain.
You can imagine that it would take some chutzpah then for a little-known actor to take the stage in a one-man show called “The Mark Twain You Don’t Know.” But surprisingly, an American-born actor from Australia does it---and damn well, at that!
Chris Wallace does not attempt to BE Mark Twain, instead he uses Twain’s many voices to tell stories that Twain intended never to publish, or stories that he stipulated should be published after his death. And in the case of his “Letters from the Earth,” some 500 years after his death!
These “Letters” are Twain’s take on religion down through the ages, and the stories from the Bible in particular. They are told in a dialogue between God and his archangels: Gabriel, Michael, and Satan. Stipulating that “the law of God is the law of nature,” God begins by defining the immutable natures of animals and man and noting that these creatures are just a divine “experiment.” Satan, who refutes God’s explanations, comments that, as far as “reasoning” goes, “nobody uses it where religion is concerned.” And, noting various contradictions in God’s behavior, Satan adds, “God always was unstable---except in his advertising.” Twain was virulent in his opposition to the dogmas and hypocrisies of religion, and one can well understand why he didn’t want this treatise published until he had been dead 500 years!
In his next sequence, Wallace depicts a ribald conversation from the year 1601 between a high-pitched, imperious Queen Elizabeth I and some of her contemporaries, including Sir Walter Raleigh, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, et al. The piece revolves around the question of who had let go with a monstrous fart, with the Queen questioning each one in turn and receiving elaborate responses from all those present. A supposedly hilarious spoof of the times and manners of the period (it doesn’t hold up well 400 years later), it is titled “1601. A Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors,” and Twain had intended for it never to be published.
The highlight of the evening, however, is Wallace’s version of Huckleberry Finn, a mini-play in many voices, with a little singing and dancing to boot. Condensed though it is, it captures the essence and the humor of Twain’s greatest work, with Wallace’s songs well in keeping with Twain’s intent.
Finally, Act I and Act II each end with dramatically moving paeans to the dead. First “The War Prayer,” in which a somber stranger interrupts the festivities celebrating the young men about to go off to the Civil War to fight for the Confederacy with a recitation of the horrors that will ensue for both sides. And, at the last, an entry from his diary in which Twain expresses his inconsolable grief at the loss of his daughter Jean.
Wallace, who is a charming performer, has done well by Twain. He is no competition for the title-holder, Hal Holbrook, but then, he doesn’t try to be. His interpretations of isH Twain’s “unknown” writings carry the evening.
Chris Wallace’s one-man show was presented for three nights, June 22-24 at the Pierson Playhouse in Temescal Canyon in the Pacific Palisades.
Comments? Write to us at: Letters@ReviewPlay.Com
And Uncensored
By Cynthia Citron
Every once in a while an actor will come along who can capture and define a specific role so uniquely as to make that character his own forever---or at least for that generation. I’m thinking particularly of Jose Ferrer as Cyrano de Bergerac. Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins. And Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain.
You can imagine that it would take some chutzpah then for a little-known actor to take the stage in a one-man show called “The Mark Twain You Don’t Know.” But surprisingly, an American-born actor from Australia does it---and damn well, at that!
Chris Wallace does not attempt to BE Mark Twain, instead he uses Twain’s many voices to tell stories that Twain intended never to publish, or stories that he stipulated should be published after his death. And in the case of his “Letters from the Earth,” some 500 years after his death!
These “Letters” are Twain’s take on religion down through the ages, and the stories from the Bible in particular. They are told in a dialogue between God and his archangels: Gabriel, Michael, and Satan. Stipulating that “the law of God is the law of nature,” God begins by defining the immutable natures of animals and man and noting that these creatures are just a divine “experiment.” Satan, who refutes God’s explanations, comments that, as far as “reasoning” goes, “nobody uses it where religion is concerned.” And, noting various contradictions in God’s behavior, Satan adds, “God always was unstable---except in his advertising.” Twain was virulent in his opposition to the dogmas and hypocrisies of religion, and one can well understand why he didn’t want this treatise published until he had been dead 500 years!
In his next sequence, Wallace depicts a ribald conversation from the year 1601 between a high-pitched, imperious Queen Elizabeth I and some of her contemporaries, including Sir Walter Raleigh, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, et al. The piece revolves around the question of who had let go with a monstrous fart, with the Queen questioning each one in turn and receiving elaborate responses from all those present. A supposedly hilarious spoof of the times and manners of the period (it doesn’t hold up well 400 years later), it is titled “1601. A Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors,” and Twain had intended for it never to be published.
The highlight of the evening, however, is Wallace’s version of Huckleberry Finn, a mini-play in many voices, with a little singing and dancing to boot. Condensed though it is, it captures the essence and the humor of Twain’s greatest work, with Wallace’s songs well in keeping with Twain’s intent.
Finally, Act I and Act II each end with dramatically moving paeans to the dead. First “The War Prayer,” in which a somber stranger interrupts the festivities celebrating the young men about to go off to the Civil War to fight for the Confederacy with a recitation of the horrors that will ensue for both sides. And, at the last, an entry from his diary in which Twain expresses his inconsolable grief at the loss of his daughter Jean.
Wallace, who is a charming performer, has done well by Twain. He is no competition for the title-holder, Hal Holbrook, but then, he doesn’t try to be. His interpretations of isH Twain’s “unknown” writings carry the evening.
Chris Wallace’s one-man show was presented for three nights, June 22-24 at the Pierson Playhouse in Temescal Canyon in the Pacific Palisades.
Comments? Write to us at: Letters@ReviewPlay.Com
Saturday, February 7, 2009
YOU SHOULD BE SHOT (better than you are now)
When this blog first started it was supposed to augment the website http://www.reviewplays.com/, adding little asides about the reviews that for whatever reason did not fit well in the review. It didn't work. As time passed, (you can read for yourself) it became more of a complain and gripe column, and being that nobody cares anyway, it will probably continue griping about things. This time it's head shots.
I hate today's headshots. For the record, I ran a photo studio for years, photographed hundreds of persons and umpteen actors for their headshots. But that was another time. Having attended photography school here in Los Angeles and in Santa Barbara California, when we shot pictures for assignments the only way to get a passing grade was to make sure the photo was focused, framed and finished. Especially faces.
I know a thing or two about photographing faces, and at the risk of sounding self-serving (what the heck - I'll do it anyway) I have won a few ribbons and gold medals with my portraits from the competitive days when I submitted work to the LA County Fair and other exhibits.
In those days, lighting and expression were two important factors in portraits. We had our heroes that we emulated; Josuf Karsh - Richard Avedon - Bernard of Hollywood - Bunny Yeager. Those were photographers! Today's so called photographers are not even good enough to walk 20 steps behind them, let alone in their shadows.
When I get headshots from actors to put on the website, I see pictures where the top of the head is cut off - or the face is way to the left or to the right, and the expressions are expressionless. The lighting is flat - obviously no shadows or dimensionality and no attempt at creativity. I recently saw a proof set from one photographer that had about 15o shots. Except for the different color shirts and sweaters, the faces were identical on all. It was as if they took one photo and copied it 150 times coloring only the clothing. And for this they get a lot of money!
The bad thing is that the agents have bought into this style of blandness, and unless an actor has pictures that fit this mold, they will reject them. What passes for good headshots today would have lined the trash barrels at Brooks Institute where I went to school.
So what should good face pictures look like? Well - here's one link to get you started: http://www.fingerlakesphoto.com/bw1.htm
From there check out this one: http://www.popphoto.com/americanphotofeatures/5132/immortal-images-a-tribute-to-photography-and-the-movies-glamours-golden-age-page2.html
When you have finished seeing the way the actors were photographed in the previous link look at your most recent head shot and compare the difference.
Sure, it was another time and another mind set - but you don't hear anyone refererring to the present as the "Golden Age", do you? Ever wonder why?
Till next time . . .
Comments? Click the link to write to: Letters@ReviewPlays.Com
I hate today's headshots. For the record, I ran a photo studio for years, photographed hundreds of persons and umpteen actors for their headshots. But that was another time. Having attended photography school here in Los Angeles and in Santa Barbara California, when we shot pictures for assignments the only way to get a passing grade was to make sure the photo was focused, framed and finished. Especially faces.
I know a thing or two about photographing faces, and at the risk of sounding self-serving (what the heck - I'll do it anyway) I have won a few ribbons and gold medals with my portraits from the competitive days when I submitted work to the LA County Fair and other exhibits.
In those days, lighting and expression were two important factors in portraits. We had our heroes that we emulated; Josuf Karsh - Richard Avedon - Bernard of Hollywood - Bunny Yeager. Those were photographers! Today's so called photographers are not even good enough to walk 20 steps behind them, let alone in their shadows.
When I get headshots from actors to put on the website, I see pictures where the top of the head is cut off - or the face is way to the left or to the right, and the expressions are expressionless. The lighting is flat - obviously no shadows or dimensionality and no attempt at creativity. I recently saw a proof set from one photographer that had about 15o shots. Except for the different color shirts and sweaters, the faces were identical on all. It was as if they took one photo and copied it 150 times coloring only the clothing. And for this they get a lot of money!
The bad thing is that the agents have bought into this style of blandness, and unless an actor has pictures that fit this mold, they will reject them. What passes for good headshots today would have lined the trash barrels at Brooks Institute where I went to school.
So what should good face pictures look like? Well - here's one link to get you started: http://www.fingerlakesphoto.com/bw1.htm
From there check out this one: http://www.popphoto.com/americanphotofeatures/5132/immortal-images-a-tribute-to-photography-and-the-movies-glamours-golden-age-page2.html
When you have finished seeing the way the actors were photographed in the previous link look at your most recent head shot and compare the difference.
Sure, it was another time and another mind set - but you don't hear anyone refererring to the present as the "Golden Age", do you? Ever wonder why?
Till next time . . .
Comments? Click the link to write to: Letters@ReviewPlays.Com
Friday, August 1, 2008
Mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it anymore (maybe)
On August 1, 2008 the news of the day was the huge profit earned by oil companies. Billions and Billions and Billions! With the price of gas going stratospheric, it's not wonder they make so much profit. But who gets that profit?
If it's going to their investors in the form of dividends, then one can say - at least it's filtering down. But what if it filters down to very wealthy who own hundreds of thousands of shares in the company? Is it fair that the proverbial rich get richer scheme continues? Some argue that there should be a windfall profits tax on the oil companies and their shareholders. If you were rich and had invested millions speculating in oil companies and your shares paid off, would you be willing to give it back in the form of additional tax?
Someone pointed out that pensi0n funds and many 401K plans are heavily invested in oil companies and the profits are shared with those. Last I saw my 401K did not grow by billions! It didn't even grow at all - it went south (a little).
So what's the answer? Well, it certainly isn't coming from me. If I had the solution I would be one of those rich magnates that invest millions in oil stocks and sit back to enjoy the fruits of my speculation. But maybe the answer is for me to get a bicycle or to walk or hitchhike. At least there will none of my money going to those greedy oil fat cats!
Lets see. if I live near Glendale and the play I'm reviewing is in West Hollywood, how long will it take to ride the bike to get there?
If it's going to their investors in the form of dividends, then one can say - at least it's filtering down. But what if it filters down to very wealthy who own hundreds of thousands of shares in the company? Is it fair that the proverbial rich get richer scheme continues? Some argue that there should be a windfall profits tax on the oil companies and their shareholders. If you were rich and had invested millions speculating in oil companies and your shares paid off, would you be willing to give it back in the form of additional tax?
Someone pointed out that pensi0n funds and many 401K plans are heavily invested in oil companies and the profits are shared with those. Last I saw my 401K did not grow by billions! It didn't even grow at all - it went south (a little).
So what's the answer? Well, it certainly isn't coming from me. If I had the solution I would be one of those rich magnates that invest millions in oil stocks and sit back to enjoy the fruits of my speculation. But maybe the answer is for me to get a bicycle or to walk or hitchhike. At least there will none of my money going to those greedy oil fat cats!
Lets see. if I live near Glendale and the play I'm reviewing is in West Hollywood, how long will it take to ride the bike to get there?
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
What's in a Name?
We have seen a couple of plays that had a historical background, which triggered some ruminations about things of the past. For example, not many people know that this year marks the 501st anniversary of the naming of America. Going back 500 plus years always has the inherent danger of compromising accuracy, but it's generally acknowledged that America was named after one of its early explorers, Amerigo Vespucci. Vespucci is credited with making one of the earliest - if not the first - accurate map of the new world, pointing out that in fact, the continent was not at all attached to India, as Columbus believed, but was a separate and unique land mass on its own.
It's a good thing they (whoever "they" were) decided to use the first name for the naming convention. Imagine if they had chosen the last name! We would live in Vespuccia!
Can you imagine singing - "God bless Vespuccia, land that I love" ?
Can you hear John Wayne saying "I am a Vespuccian - and proud of it".
Anti -protestors would rally around the slogan - "Vespuccia - love it or leave it!"
Thank goodness for small favors - often couched within events that may seem insignificant at the time, but eventually seem to take on gargantuan proportions. For example . . . Benjamin Franklin argued that the turkey should be considered as the national bird. His logic was flawless as witnessed in a letter he wrote berating the choice of the eagle - "He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him. "
And then he added this about the turkey - - - "For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."
If Franklin had prevailed our coins and currency would look considerably different and the inmortal words of Neil Armstrong as he landed on the moon would have been - "Houston - Tranquility Base here - the Turkey has landed" It was definitely one of Vespuccia's proudest moments.
It's a good thing they (whoever "they" were) decided to use the first name for the naming convention. Imagine if they had chosen the last name! We would live in Vespuccia!
Can you imagine singing - "God bless Vespuccia, land that I love" ?
Can you hear John Wayne saying "I am a Vespuccian - and proud of it".
Anti -protestors would rally around the slogan - "Vespuccia - love it or leave it!"
Thank goodness for small favors - often couched within events that may seem insignificant at the time, but eventually seem to take on gargantuan proportions. For example . . . Benjamin Franklin argued that the turkey should be considered as the national bird. His logic was flawless as witnessed in a letter he wrote berating the choice of the eagle - "He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him. "
And then he added this about the turkey - - - "For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."
If Franklin had prevailed our coins and currency would look considerably different and the inmortal words of Neil Armstrong as he landed on the moon would have been - "Houston - Tranquility Base here - the Turkey has landed" It was definitely one of Vespuccia's proudest moments.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Park-incensed Disease
As I tried to find a parking space so I could see a play in the Santa Monica Theatre Row district this last weekend, I realized that there are things that sometimes don't quite fall within the mold, and one has to wonder what in the world is going on. (click here for review)
Parking is one of those things. With the price of gasoline shooting through the roof, going to review theatre plays can be a bit expensive, depending on the distance driven. But that's not all! In addition to that there's the parking. One of my least favorite things is paying a valet between $5 to $7 to do what I can do just as easily (and maybe more carefully). But then, when the valet company takes over public parking metered spaces and blocks them off so you can't park near the theatre, that really ticks me off.
Not long ago I asked one of the attendants if he could tell me how they got permission to block off public parking and prevent drivers from using them so their company could make money. He couldn't tell me. In fact, he couldn't even tell who might know - he just said "sorry" and ran off to get another car.
Which left me wondering. How does a private for profit company like the parking group get permission to take over all the parking metered spaces about an hour before the show starts and block them all off, so that theatre patrons have to either park blocks away or pay their fee to have them park?
Who gives them permission? Is it a City Hall thing? Is it a DOT loophole? Does the theatre get any of the money? If they do, that's not so bad - goodness knows they need all the money they can get. But if the parking revenue goes all to the company, then by what right do they comandeer public parking spaces that would otherwise be free to the public?
If I were a playwright (which I'm not) I would write a play about a sleazy parking lot owner who is in cahoots with another sleazy low life at the Municipal Parking Authority. The parking low lifer pays off some amount of money to the Municipal low lifer, so that their select low lifer cops will look the other way while their henchmen usurp all the good parking metered spaces and force people to use valet service. This could grow to millions in unreported - untaxed funds and the two principal low lifes would become rich and attempt to improve their position in life so they would not be such low lifes. In my play, they would accomplish this by buying lavish flashy new cars (always good for a "ooohhh" - and "ahhh"), they would buy tacky, flashy, but expensive clothes and make sure they are seen with an exotic and expensive looking female who wears mink all day and fox all night.
Well, so much for my play. I will be seeing a production again this weekend, and I'll try to get there before the low lifes (sorry) the parking valet people block off the meters so I can get a space and hope they don't ask me to move. Then all I have to do is wait in my car for about two hours for the show to start. Maybe I can try to start writing my first play in that time.
Parking is one of those things. With the price of gasoline shooting through the roof, going to review theatre plays can be a bit expensive, depending on the distance driven. But that's not all! In addition to that there's the parking. One of my least favorite things is paying a valet between $5 to $7 to do what I can do just as easily (and maybe more carefully). But then, when the valet company takes over public parking metered spaces and blocks them off so you can't park near the theatre, that really ticks me off.
Not long ago I asked one of the attendants if he could tell me how they got permission to block off public parking and prevent drivers from using them so their company could make money. He couldn't tell me. In fact, he couldn't even tell who might know - he just said "sorry" and ran off to get another car.
Which left me wondering. How does a private for profit company like the parking group get permission to take over all the parking metered spaces about an hour before the show starts and block them all off, so that theatre patrons have to either park blocks away or pay their fee to have them park?
Who gives them permission? Is it a City Hall thing? Is it a DOT loophole? Does the theatre get any of the money? If they do, that's not so bad - goodness knows they need all the money they can get. But if the parking revenue goes all to the company, then by what right do they comandeer public parking spaces that would otherwise be free to the public?
If I were a playwright (which I'm not) I would write a play about a sleazy parking lot owner who is in cahoots with another sleazy low life at the Municipal Parking Authority. The parking low lifer pays off some amount of money to the Municipal low lifer, so that their select low lifer cops will look the other way while their henchmen usurp all the good parking metered spaces and force people to use valet service. This could grow to millions in unreported - untaxed funds and the two principal low lifes would become rich and attempt to improve their position in life so they would not be such low lifes. In my play, they would accomplish this by buying lavish flashy new cars (always good for a "ooohhh" - and "ahhh"), they would buy tacky, flashy, but expensive clothes and make sure they are seen with an exotic and expensive looking female who wears mink all day and fox all night.
Well, so much for my play. I will be seeing a production again this weekend, and I'll try to get there before the low lifes (sorry) the parking valet people block off the meters so I can get a space and hope they don't ask me to move. Then all I have to do is wait in my car for about two hours for the show to start. Maybe I can try to start writing my first play in that time.
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