Friday Collage

I did not intend to use a single motif for the collages for March, but as this is the third one I'll probably continue the theme with the last two in March. I'm calling these three fair ladies - "On the Backs of Mother Earth" a quick whole cloth exercise machine stitched on the back of the piece. (enuf said)

Back from Ashland, the plays were wonderful. The Winter's Tale was well performed, nice staging and pretty true to the bard although I think I heard Autolycus utter "Wow!" I enjoyed The Importance of Being Earnest - a trivial comedy for serious people. Wilde excelled at oxymoronica. The Diary of Anne Frank newly adapted by Wendy Kesselman was my least favorite. The acting seemed a little loose at the beginning, I never really believed in the Anne character, and cried at the end. Two wonderful quotes from the playbill:

"Abstraction is memory's most ardent enemy. It kills because it encourages distance and often indifference. We must remind ourselves that the Holocaust was not six million. It was one, plus one, plus one..." - Judith Miller, One, by One, by One

"One single Anne Frank moves us more than the countless others who suffered just as she did, but whose faces have remained in the shadows. Perhaps it is better that way: If we were capable of taking in the suffering of all those people, we would not be able to live." - Primo Levi, author and Holocaust survivor

Up by the playwright Bridget Carpenter was a delightful surprise. The inspiration for Up was the real-life exploit of Larry Walters who flew over SoCal in a lawnchair. The play is about the human desire to aspire toward something greater than oneself and what happens when those dreams are fulfilled and when they are shattered. (Carpenter also wrote for TV's Dead like Me.)