Thursday, December 19, 2013

Family Ties

I just watched 3 episodes of Family Ties, back to back, and each one made me cry.

Either I am especially emotional, or those were three very good episodes.

The first one was the one where Mallory enters her mom into a mother-daughter modeling contest, and they win. Then, Elyse gets all the attention and Mallory's feelings get hurt. Mallory had a great line, which was, "Then why does everyone make fun of the things that are important to me?" That moment with her mother was beautiful.

The second episode was the one where Steven's production assistant at work falls in love with him. It comes out that Steven is 39. 39! I felt old. But no, that's not why I got teary eyed. The production assistant was played by Judith Light. That wasn't it either. The way Elyse handled Steven when he came home from not having an affair was beautiful. Meredith Baxter Birney did a great job.

The third episode I watched was the one where Alex starts taking amphetamines so that he can keep up with all his studying and writing for mid-term exams. This show is wacky sometimes and the jokes are occasionally really corny, but Michael J. Fox was great. Maybe his acting as a kid on speed was a little frenzied but it was very good.

Anyway, I've been laying around watching television, and it's time to do some laundry and Christmas shopping and cleaning and all that stuff I've been planning on doing. It's nice to be off work.

Monday, December 16, 2013

It's time to go.

This past Saturday was my last performance in the booth for "Moskva" at City Garage. The show closed on Sunday, but we had a birthday party for one of JP's little friends to go to, and I couldn't be there for the final performance.

I ended up with conflicting feelings about this show. It was beautifully performed and designed and written, and as always, I came away with very personal reactions to things I saw and heard on the stage. That almost always happens with City Garage performances.

However, the tech for this show was so hard for me. I think I had one perfect performance, and I'm really taking that to heart. Maybe I shouldn't. There are all kinds of reasons for why this show was so hard, but in the end, what it comes down to is, my operation wasn't up to my usual standards. Friends have told me that I'm being too hard on myself, and maybe that's true, but I will note that these friends are not associated with the theater or performers themselves. I think that matters.

I'm not sure if I'll even be asked to do another show, but if I am, I really have to think about what I'll say. Besides the fact that it was hard on Patrick for me to be gone two nights a week, that all the driving back and forth to and from Santa Monica was hard on me, and the late nights away from home are so much harder on everybody than when we didn't have Jules, that I wasn't able to join my friends at flute choir... it's a huge responsibility. I take it so seriously, especially when I fail, or feel like I have.

Anyway, to be honest, I'm glad it's over. I did have fun, and as I said, it was a gorgeous production, but for me, I'll be glad to not have to have it weighing on me. And flute choir begins again in January, and I'd like to spend some time with my friends, playing my flute more. It sucks that I can't do everything anymore, but I guess that's just the way it goes.