Day One

3.28.06 11:10am
So, where was I?

2004. You know, looking back on it, it had some pretty interesting stuff. Ater Ashley was really good. Sans-Culottes in the Promised Land was really interesting and different, and fun. The Ruby Sunrise was reaching for greatness. At the Vanishing Point changed most of the people in our group. That show was a significant experience for a lot of people.Kid Simple was neat, although pretty boring. And, okay, Tallgrass Gothic put me to sleep. Let's not even begin to discuss the intern show. The problem with the 2004 Festival is that there was nothing to hate and nothing to love. Okay, some people loved After Ashley. I thoroughly enjoyed it but could not love it. In hindsight, maybe we were too hard on 2004, but I can say we were definitely right to sense danger (or rather a lack thereof) in the air.

2005. Shit hits the fan.
What a difference a year makes. BORING! It's probably very significant that the play that defined last year's Festival for me was the fucking intern show. The intern show, while still pretty bad, took a big step forward last year in being a cohesive piece with a real sense of unity and some occassional good moments. Usually the intern show just frustrates me because I'm one of those people who simply refuses to sleep in the theater.

Okay, upon further thought, I recall The Shaker Chair, which was very good and my favorite show last year. What else was there? I'm in the car, so I'll ask Acacia.

Acacia recalls the horse-racing show, but not the title. I do recall the headline from the Courier-Journal, Slavery Explored in a Winning Way!. Tara and I fought about the cultural implications. It was a likable play.

Pie-baking. There was a play in which the dramatic action could be described as - Mother and daughter bake a pie on-stage, will it be done?

There was the play about a wheelchair-bound child and her horrible parents. It wasn't bad, in fact it was relatively good.

There was a play in which The Dukes of Hazzard figured prominantly. That was the first we saw, and we thought it bode well. Ouch.

Kia Corthron's Moot the Messenger was about 6 hours long, although, in truth, I liked it.

Last year's Festival was extremely boring and extremely safe. There was really nothing to love, although there were a few plays some people did hate. We were very disappointed. Some people who were there for the first time said they couldn't see what the big deal about Humana was. That hurt.

So, to answer the original question, this is my 6th full Festival, and the 7th year I've gone.

3.28.06 6:28pm
Well, we've seen our first Humana 06 play and I'm pretty sure it's at least a minor hit.

Six Years by Sharr White (who looks like the lead character in one of Acacia's favorite bad TV shows The Pretender) is really good. Really. Now, maybe I just really, really want to be pleased, but at this point, I think it's better than anything we saw last year.

The cast is grrr-eat. I really enjoyed watching them. They all age, and do so very convincingly. They have the aid of costume changes and two dozen or so wigs, but it took good acting to pull it off.

Now, the beginning was a little rough. For about the first ten minutes, I was desperately waiting for someone to finish a thought, or even a sentence - okay, just a clause, please! - but that was clearly a choice and not a style. It eventually went away and I forgot about it completely for a long while.

Mostly, though, I was engaged and emotionally invested, and really appreciating some good writing. Not the best Humana play ever, but a very, very solid start for 2006.

3.29.06 12:15am
Act a Lady was tonight. Another good one. Not as good as Six Years, but it had its own strengths.

To start, it was genuinely funny. Clever funny, dirty funny, men-in-dresses funny. All kinds of funny, and most earned laughs. The cast was great, had great time, and everyone played at least two characters (sort of) of were just dynamite.

Then again, at first it seemed to be kind of a Humana standard, giving a midwestern kind of take on big city issues. It's the ATL giving the Heartland a gentle way to confront reality. But ... I still really liked it. Tightly scripted, great design, good directing. Great structural construction. It was not unpredictable, but after two scenes, I was thinking, "Okay, what's going on here?".

There were also some great images, including a tough guy in a dress kissing a woman, and a funny-looking old lady walking around with an accordian. I also loved the first scene transition.

But none of that prepared me for the second act. Then the play kind of went of into la la land. It actually reminded me of The Second Death of Priscilla in its mixing of reality and fantasy and its willingness to do so without explaining it. Really, there was no real resolution of some of what took place.

Yet ... (here comes the really honest part of the review) ... I shed a few tears in the last scene. Something about the song, and then the realization of what she was singing about, and the final scene change and the ending image, it all got to me and I loved the final moments. As Dot says in the play, "It took me somewhere, and I'm not sure I came back." I can't explain the effect it had on me, but there it was. It was beautiful.