Practicalmadness

Following on the other night's entry about the Weiner's Circle: when Jenny and I first went there all we knew is that it was very well-reviewed on CitySearch. I brought it up in Directing class today as an example of an environment where truth is stranger than fiction, and nearly everyone in the class then chimed in with their own story about the place.

CLASSMATE: "I've been called 'honey', 'bitch'...
ME: "I think if you can get outta there only having been called 'honey' or 'bitch', you're getting off easy..."

It came up because some of my fellow wannabe directors -- specifically the ones who were performing my piece -- were having trouble with some of the lines. I personally don't understand what's so wrong about a character saying "he dreams...the stars were gone from his eyes...", etc. I guess there's just no room for operatic melodrama anymore.

Bridgit, the girl playing my femme fatale, understood what I was going for and cited Gone With The Wind. (Gregg hit the nail on the head, mentioning the films of Douglas Sirk.) Bridgit's problem was with the sexual dialogue ("Then I guess I'd touch you while he fucked you up the ass...selfish! Selfish bitch!", et al.), and having said that I'm not sure if her flatter-than-the-rehearsal delivery was awkwardness or revenge. It doesn't matter: the piece went over well, and provided I can brain-fart a few pages of brilliance on Brecht, Godard and Weekend in the next 45 minutes, all should be well.

Which is good, because I have less than five days to vacate my dorm room, and in nearly every case so far getting credit for my classes has been a close call. I even have an incomplete in Screenwriting because my professor, Chicago Tribune film critic John Petrakis, decided that Two or Three Things You Should Know About Mike Morpheus, my first feature-length script, was too good to be abandoned 48 pages in.

And so I see my future: writing elegant, operatic scripts where people brandish the word "cunt" like a knife.