I'll Miss this House: Withdrawal from Habit

I always enjoy watching the play when the lights come on in the house.

Lara, I went to two hours of Habit today, one not long after I'd returned form work.  I then came home to interview our guest blogger over the phone and then went back for the last hour . . . of the entire week--the very last performance ever.

The crowd was probably near capacity tonight.  Clumps of people stood at the windows watching the action inside, the imploding lives of characters who have run out of options and can't leave their crappy house, the characters who have to relive this story over and over again for an eight-hour stretch, the characters who have to utter the same heinous lines, unable--according to the rules--to add or subtract a word.

Today, I noticed a fresh baked pan of brownies on the counter, the Duncan Hines mix had been used.

I saw a character say one of his lines while chewing a piece of Halloween candy.  (In the script, the characters feel compelled to decorate--however garishly--for every holiday so as to better "fit in" in what we assume is their lower middle class housing development.

Yesterday, I watched a character lop off two words, finding himself unable to repeat one of these sentences again

I really got to know the script.

At promptly 9:00 pm the lights in the house went dark.  The play was done for the day and really done.  I would not be going back.  S and I milled around for a little.

While doing so, I ran into one of the actors from the other cast (their are two that take turns performing).  I told him how much the play had started to mean to me, how much it began to be woven into the fabric of my own life.  He was visibly touched--unless he was just acting.

I'm assuming this week will be one of withdrawal for me.  It might get a little painful.

The actors finally get to break the 4th wall.  The director is on the left.

Habit

I went again, Lara, and took this surreptitious photo.

I just wrote a long post and lost it!

I keep visiting Habit.

I'm fascinated that three actors are living in an alternative universe a stone's throw from my building. 

I love the way audience members anxiously circle the house, trying to angle themselves for the best views, trying to anticipate where the actors will go.

While I was there yesterday, an actor took a shower, and some of us watched the outline of his body moving.  A toilet flushed.  This same actor took a nap in the messy bed, waiting for his next line to come around.

I peered over the shoulder of another actor, as she stabbed a knife into a tray of cold brownies.  She spoke her lines--an explanation of semiotics--with her mouth full. 

Yesterday, I saw this character die in a different way than this character had died a day earlier.

The only requirement is that the actors stick to the script as written, but I'm fascinated by the ways this set script becomes malleable, and tweaked, the way our own scripts do.

I've visited Habit four times and will go back today.

Can you see why I'm addicted?  Read more about it here.

The Play of Tight Places

Sam Shepard and Patti Smith in Cowboy Mouth, 1971 (Photo by Gerard Malagna)

Okay, I'm really bummed I can't use the photos I took directly before and after the 2012 East Village production of Sam Shepard and Patti Smith's Cowboy Mouth I returned from a couple of hours ago.   It was an apartment room, the walls painted glossy black.  In the center a bed, ringed with books, a typewriter, drums a guitar.  A slovenly boho paradise.  The audience members were part of the space.  The wine that was offered the audience members before the play was integrated into the show.  

The play is all about boredom, agitation, claustrophobia, guilt, yearning, and rock and roll.   (In this way, it reminded me of life in my own New York apartment.)  Heroes--the patron saints of the play--who were mentioned included Patti's usual faves:  Villon, Dylan and Jagger.  There was a time in America, I suppose, when rock stars the poets who act like them took on the aspects of saints and saviors--at least that's what the play would have me believe.

The best part of tonight's performance was the context.  That the action was happening in a real apartment with windows that opened onto a real street and let in breezes and noise.   The audience members were interlopers.  

I don't knowwhy, thinking about it on this night of the Tony Awards, this play couldn't be similarly staged in any city or small town.  

By the way, to increase the agitation in here, my kids have taken to jump roping in the only place available for any kind of egress.  I swear this play is my life.

Looking forward to:  Seeing an old friend from Utah this week.  Tomorrow's guest blog post!

Inspiration:  Morning pages, even though I don't have the book yet.  Anything I should know until I get it?

The 2012 production was not in the room pictured here