Aaah, Theatah!

I’ve been working with this theater group the last few weeks. We’re putting in a lot of work on what I think will be a pretty good show that opens this week. And while it is nothing like the experience I am going to tell you about, I am constantly reminded of my days doing Julius Caesar with the Subterranean Shakespeare group.

Let me take you back. I was offered a part – offered, no audition – and when that happens, I figure you gotta take it. We would rehearse in empty classrooms on the UC Berkeley campus. And I guess I should have gotten some sort of clue regarding what kind of troupe I was in when we had to make sure nobody knew we were inside the building. But it did seem sort of exciting at the time…

Most of the actors were self-involved asses, above it all, doing Shakespeare (read with a highly affected and fakey British accent)! Most of them also blew. Our man who played Brutus was apparently channeling the spirit of Captain Kirk – Captain Kirk who doesn’t know his lines. The director was from Argentina and had, shall we say, a twitchy control of the English language. And Caesar was threatening to leave halfway through the production because he possibly had another part in another play.

But the best part came when I found out where we were actually performing. The stage manager – my man Dougie P – said that we were getting into the pizza parlor to finally rehearse. I thought he was joking, so naturally started laughing. But no, seriously, this Shakespeare travesty was being put up in the basement of a pizza parlor.

LaVal’s – off the Berkeley campus if any of you bay area folks have been there – is a loud, obnoxious pizza joint with a shit hole basement which they rent out for shows.

I could fill up this posting talking about the seemingly unending show, but I won’t. I will say that it was the worst theater experience I have ever had. I will say that there are at least 5 people in that cast that I will run from if I don’t have the ability to piss on them when I see them on the street. I will say that I feel sorry for the poor suckers who had to see the show (like Lisa Drostova), but not as sorry as I feel for myself. I will say that you pompous fucking asses were doing a show in the basement of a pizza parlor, c’mon!