2 Links 2 Make U Laugh

 

March 29, 2021 2 Links 2 Make U Laugh PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED.

Of course, one of the most troubling questions we face in our post- What'sHisName world has been: HOW WILL RANDY RAINBOW SURVIVE AS A GREAT ARTIST WITHOUT THE ORANGE ONE AS A TARGET FOR HIS WITTY & FINELY CRAFTED SATIRE?!? The answer, as we can see from this video is: "Quite nicely, thank you very much." He's gotten more complex musically -- and definitely more naughty. ENJOY.

And then there's Rachel Maddow. As we know, she can be like a dog with a bone. Here, she's got her teeth around a particularly juicy bone, and she's almost falling off her chair from chortling too much. ENJOY ONCE MORE. And that's all for today, dear Bloggelinis. Terry

Sunday 3/28 7pm: EVE IN THERAPY (& other treats)

 

March 23, 2021 Sunday 3/28 7pm: Eve in Therapy A Rave for livestream HICK HICK & Interview still available PREVIOUS BLOGS: TERRYBAUM.BLOGSPOT.COM PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED. IF THIS BLOG WAS FORWARDED TO YOU, YOU ARE NOT SUBSCRIBED. FOR LINKS TO EVERYTHING: LilithTheater.com EVE IN THERAPY -- FREE LIVE STREAM! Yes, BlogMistress admits she's having a bit of trouble getting back in the blogsaddle. It is so HARD to face the whole world and so much EASIER to deal with a tiny scrap of it like our scene about Eve's session with psychiatrist Dr. Lilith concerning Eve's notorious bite of a certain fruit. Not an insignificant scrap of the world, but still a scrap. (I am having difficulty with that paragraph above. I just want to send this off rather than get help.) Carolyn and I will be doing EVE IN THERAPY, our signature Crackpot Crones scene, as part of a live stream evening of seven short scenes presented by the Dramatists Guild in honor of Women's History Month. The evite describes all seven scenes, and they all intrigue me. EVE will be the third one. Please do try to see this, because I don't know if it will be available after the one performance. Carolyn and I are having so much fun working on EVE, which we've performed many times here and there around the U.S. and Mexico. We're being directed by Velina Brown, of SF Mime Troupe fame, and we love it. Of course, she's a master of comedy (her Mime Troupe background) AND Velina also takes us SERIOUSLY. She reminds us of the depth of the story we're telling -- of Eve's pain and Lilith's loving care. Quite frankly, I'd forgotten everything except the comedy. Just because you wrote something doesn't mean you ever grasped its full meaning. It's quite something to work with Velina. Velina asks questions that stop me in my tracks. When she was directing the SF Fringe production of HICK, she asked me, "Who is Hick talking to?" My first response was "What do you mean 'who is she talking to?"! She's talking to whoever paid for a seat that night!" Velina: "Are these people friends or strangers? Is she talking to one or many?" Finally I settled on one friend as my imaginary audience. It made a difference in my performance that it was specific. Recently, Carolyn came up with what I think is the perfect answer: Hick is talking to ME, Terry Baum. This makes sense to me, as I feel such love for Hick. I feel very protective of her. LIVE STREAM HICK RECEIVES A RAVE! We got a wonderful review by Charles Kruger on the website TheatreStorm: "The story is full of suspense and interest. But it is the emotional honesty of the two actresses that grips us and proves to be deeply touching." "Eleanor appears, in a graceful performance by Paula Barish. The chemistry between the two women is electric." "The two stories -- love affair and the Great Depression -- are beautifully interwoven." It's pretty nice to get a rave review where the critic really GETS what you're trying to do. Thank you, Charles! You can read the whole review by clicking TheatreStorm above. After reading the review and hearing LOTS of positive responses, I finally worked up the courage to watch HICK Live Stream myself. My own review: Paula was superb as Eleanor. The writing (both the playwright's & Eleanor's) was damn good! The directing choices really worked. That actress playing Hick has a ways to go, but she's on the road. HICK & INTERVIEW STILL AVAILABLE WATCH HICK WATCH INTERVIEW with TERRY & CAROLYN Many REALLY liked the interview. Try it. All for now, Bloggelinis. Wow, it feels so GOOD to write you. Why do I deny myself the pleasure???!? Does that happen to you, where you KNOW what you need to do, you KNOW you like doing it, and YET you feel enormous forces weighing you down. Sometimes I feel like I'm pulling against heavy heavy chains that are dragging me backwards. I wonder if perhaps it's a result of the fact that I'm really not supposed to be who I am. My parents brought me into the world to marry a (male) lawyer! Or at least a (male) CPA! They didn't do it so I could write this blog! Well, I done diddly doed it anyhow. So there! Terry

LIFE IN THE LIVE STREAM

 

March 5, 2021 The Mistress is Back! PREVIOUS BLOGS: TERRYBAUM.BLOGSPOT.COM PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED. IF THIS BLOG WAS FORWARDED TO YOU, YOU ARE NOT SUBSCRIBED. Life in the Live Stream Available through March: Watch HICK: A Love Story Watch Interview of Terry & Carolyn

So we three -- Paula (playing Eleanor), Carolyn (directing), and me -- did the dastardly deed of entering the live stream and betraying our beloved theater. Truly, I loved it. I loved performing with Paula, whose recorded voice I've been performing with since 2014. The reality of the relationship between Hick and Eleanor was so much more intense with a really strong actress reading the letters live, rather than on tape. Unfortunately, I still didn't get a chance to actually LOOK at Paula, because we were using Streamyard and not Zoom, because that's what EXIT Theatre uses. In Streamyard, you get a REVERSE mirror of what you're doing. That is, if I lift my right hand, I appear to be lifting my left hand. So in order to appear to be looking in Eleanor's direction, I had to LOOK AWAY FROM her. There was a brief moment, when we're getting excited about seeing each other for Christmas and we're both looking straight ahead. So I did catch a glimpse of her then. But even then, we're NOT supposed to be looking at each other but at the CAMERA, which is ABOVE our images on the screen. If I had looked at Paula's screen, I would have appeared to be looking down. During rehearsal, I thought I would never get used to the reverse mirror, which feels like the equivalent to driving on the left side of the road, if you've ever done that in Great Britain or South Africa. I was always having to make minute adjustments to stay in the little box of screen. I'd see my image and think, "A little to the right please" and move toward my right and discover I needed to move to my LEFT to APPEAR more to the right. Eventually I DID get used to the reverse mirror and started naturally reversing my movements. I was pretty proud of myself. Eric and I never DID get used to the left side of the road in 2013 in South Africa. We'd be trundling along and suddenly there would be a car screaming toward us in the same lane. We were incredibly stupid to even try a 3-week driving trip and incredibly lucky we survived intact. But I digress. Paula was absolutely wonderful as Eleanor -- elegant and strong and Eleanory and oh so in love with Hick. And, even though I couldn't see her, it was great to be performing live with her voice. My friend, Revital, who I believe is the premier HICKhead, having seen it countless times in workshops, readings, theaters and now live stream, says that this one is not to be missed. And I would certainly have watched the video MYSELF by now, if it was only Paula onscreen. But I'm putting it off. I was putting off the blog until I watched the live stream. And putting off the live stream because... well, nobody likes seeing themselves on video. I mean, even when I was YOUNG I didn't like seeing myself on video. So I thought I'd just do the blog first. Carolyn was directing a live stream performance for the first time. She had to make decisions in a totally new medium, not knowing what worked and what didn't. And it ALL WORKED! Everyone who saw the performance understood what was going on and the different image sizes of me and Paula seemed to make sense and seemed to flow. That's an astonishing accomplishment. Again, I haven't seen the video, but that's what everyone says. As always I benefited greatly from her direction as an actor. I love following orders. They just have to be the right orders. TECHNICAL: And how about those set changes! There are three scenes: Scene One 1968, Scene Two 1930s, and Scene Three 1968:

Guess who did the set changes! Moi! Who else is gonna be there in my flat in the middle of a pandemic? Ideally, actors should not have technical tasks other than picking up their props and changing their costumes. Their focus is simply not on arranging their environment precisely. And, as you can see, I was not precise. In the first scene, the corner of the set for the second scene is visible. Oopsie! And in the second scene, the set is supposed to fill the whole background -- no black should be visible. Oopsie again! I also had to change my costume during the same interval as the set change. The interval was as long as one of Eleanor's long letters. In live theater, one would have help with these things and one would also have a technician in the booth who could use her judgment about whether things were in place and the lights could be brought up. She might even be getting an actual go-ahead over a headset from someone backstage. However, Amanda, our wonderful technician, was in Grass Valley and had no idea when everything was ready. I lived in fear of being late getting into my seat for the third scene, because then people would see that I had very sloppily safety-pinned up the hem of my dressing gown, because in an early rehearsal I had stepped on the hem and just gone DOWN. (This was extremely amusing to Carolyn and me. We spend quite a bit of time laughing at ourselves.) Of course, I COULD have nicely hemmed the dressing gown, which would have HAD to have happened if the play was in a theater. But I decided to live in fear instead. In terms of lighting and make-up, you can see in the photo at the top that Paula looks much clearer and more like a real person than I do. I'm not sure how that happened. In terms of acting, for me it was like learning a new language. I explored what Hick feels and does in a more intimate way. By the end of the play, I felt some sense of mastery of this new language, which was exciting. For me, mastery has nothing to do with perfection. It's all about feeling comfortable enough to explore more deeply. I look forward to my next live stream performance. AND we have a very nice video of the live stream which you can watch and also forward to your friends! Okay, Bloggelinis, I'm preparing myself to enter the maelstrom that is our current world. Biden is turning out to be a mixed bag, of course. I'm furious that he's letting MBS, the Saudi Prince, get away with murder without so much as a reprimand. But I'm thrilled that he called the Texas and Mississippi governors "Neanderthals" for getting rid of the mask mandate -- although it IS very insulting to Neanderthals, who were probably very nice people. Terry