Sue Merrell's Blog: Laughing for a Living, page 30

Living in suits

There was a time when businessmen -- and women -- lived in suits. Times have changed and even when it isn't casual Friday, most business people have slipped the suit's snare. Personally, I've moved to the opposite extreme. I'm in my third year of retirement, and we're in our third month living in the Keys. It is so warm (85 degrees today) that I've taken to wearing my swim suit even if I'm not planning on swimming. This life "suits" me.

Learning from kids

I just finished the John Lithgow biography, Drama: An Actor's Education, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of my favorite stories happens in his early career when the 6-foot-4 actor is cast as Lenny, the large but simple man in John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" . Although he is better known for more debonair personalities, Lithgow found the opportunity of playing Lenny exciting. But the biggest challenge was the rowdy teenage audiences that came to the student matinees at Princeton's McCarter Theater. The play's tenderness and melancholy was lost on the rambunctious kids who laughed at all the wrong spots and made fun of Lenny.Lithgow took on the quest and by adjusting the show's pacing was able to squeeze out inappropriate laughter and comments. "By our last "Of Mice and Men" matinee, we had learned to cast a spell over an audience of teenage kids. They laughed all right, but only when we wanted them to. And when we wanted them quiet, you could hear a pin drop... By the end of our run the show had vastly improved. And I believe it was the student matinees that had improved it. We hadn't learned all that much from the adults who had come to see us, but those kids had taught us volumes."

Super Bowl Sunday

Wings win!Sometimes it's good to know my tastes are so popular. Steve and I were in Key West today. A rain storm sideswiped our original outdoor lunch plans so we were lunching inside at Hurricane Hole (appropriate for the weather) and the first thing on the menu, pulled pork nachos with black beans, sounded great so we shared a plate. Then we headed back to "our" key (three months and we think we own the place), Big Pine Key. Steve suggested stopping in at the chicken wing bar at Winn Dixie and taking home a pound for dinner during the game. Then I'm surfing the net to find out exactly when the game starts and I'm reading the story on the Huffington Post, and guess what? The number one munchie for the game is wings, followed closely by nachos.

Crazy time

It's been a good week. I added four more chapters to my next book, One Shoe Off. My chapters are short and I just finished Chapter 31 so I'm about a third of the way through the book. Until this week I've been rewriting and reworking the first 27 chapters that I wrote earlier so this is the first week since we came down to the Keys that I've really been creating. Writing fiction is so invigorating, but sometimes I think it's the closest thing to insanity. This week I've spent a lot of time in the minds of my characters. Trying to hear what they would say, understand what they would do. But after a while they become so real it is frightening. This morning, for instance, I'd been working on a scene, writing in my nightgown. I came to the end of the scene and decided to take a break and get dressed. The thought actually crossed my mind to close the door so my male character wouldn't see me undressed. Isn't that crazy? I suspect it's a lot like it must be for an actor digging deep inside themselves to feel what their character is feeling

Last laugh

Today I received what may well be my last paycheck from The Grand Rapids Press. Everyone knows about the changes afoot at The Press. This week home delivery is being cut back to three days a week and the office is moving to Founders' Bank building. It's exciting in some ways, with all sorts of new delivery capabilities such as an "app for the ipad." That's something they never taught us in J-School. But the changes are scary too. Many great writers, editors and photographers have lost their jobs. Personally, I'm floating somewhere in limbo land. Officially, I retired almost 3 years ago but I've been covering local theater on a freelance basis, except during the winter months when I'm in Florida. I've been asked to continue covering theater when I return in April, but I'll have to decide if I can afford to take assignments at the rate the new company is willing to pay. Am I really willing to work just for the fun of it?

Joke's on me!

The latest laugh is at my expense. The Kindle version of my second book, Great News Town, is available free, today only, at the Kindle Store, as part of the Kindle Select program. Of course, that means I don't make any royalty on the books sold today, but I want to share the book with as many people as I can, especially since I expect to have the sequel ready by next summer. So Kindle readers, here's your chance. Don't blow it!

Oh I wish I were in Dixie...and I am!

Had a great time yesterday at the Marathon Community Theatre production of Dixie Swim Club. This is community theater at its best, and proud of it, where enthusiasm makes up for less than ideal costuming or body shapes. The audience is never completely convinced that these are five women meeting at the North Carolina Outer Banks for an annual getaway. We're always a little aware that these are local actresses, changing wigs and costumes to feign the passage of 30 years and reciting a script of one liners, but they are having such a good time that we gladly join in the masquerade. Okay, so the sound effects of an approaching hurricane were spotty and unconvincing, but Vernadette's tirade on the benefits of biscuits is so heartfelt and hilarious that theatricks really don't matter. This show is mostly about friendship and fun with a small amount of serious stuff and character development to keep your interest. Kudos to the cast and crew. BTW...what a nice little procenium theater, with about 150 seats, nicely designed and good crowd. I'll be back.

January Monroe County

For play, not pay, I went to see August Osage County last night at the Waterfront Playhouse in Key West and have to admit I was a bit disappointed. This is a professional theater in the third week of a run and yet a couple of scenes were as sluggish as the first day off book. The actors stumbled over forgotten lines and sat around looking at each other. "Life is Long," a quote from T.S. Elliott, is the first line in the play, the implication being that life continues past the point of enjoyment, and unfortunately this production seemed to take that as stage direction. The play dawdles through three hours and 15 minutes, including two intermissions. I appreciated the artistic impact of the three-act format, and would not suggest altering that, but I think the Pulitzer Prize-winning play needs a little trimming. Don't get me wrong, it has powerful moments as well as funny ones.This is the story of an Oklahoma family full of secrets. It includes some spectacular portrayals, especially Joy Hawkins as the pill popping matriarch Violet. But there's a lot of slop around the edges that doesn't add to the characters or the impact, it just muddies everything. I will be interested to see how Actors Theatre in Grand Rapids deals with these challenges when it produces the show in May.

Now that's Great News!

This blog chronicles my life as a theater reviewer, but I have to share the good news that my second book, Great News Town, just came out on Kindle and it is part of Kindle's new FREE lending library. With the free Kindle apps, you can read Great News Town on virtually any digital device. I can't promise that my mystery thriller about a serial killer will leave you laughing, but I doubt you can find a better deal for exciting reading!

Remember your first time?

You will if you go to see Spring Awakening at Actors' Theatre. Prepare to blush, not so much for the actors on stage, whose awkward fumblings with sexual awareness are sometimes funny, sometimes tender, sometimes sad -- but because the utter frankness is bound to make your mind race back to your own sexual awakening (whether funny, tender or sad) This is a show I will want to see again to catch nuances in the lyrics that I'm sure I missed ... the first time.