Tidbit of Crap

I've just finished reading over the blog I wrote on Sunday, and it seems to me that it's kind of unsatisfactory (from a reader's point of view, of course: my writing was impeccable as always, being distantly related to James Joyce as I am, ye, 1st cousin twice removed, pretty cool eh? I think so... anyway...). I come back to blogging like this, all of a sudden, diving right in at the morbid end, with no explanation of any kind of what I've been up to these, I don't know, how long has it been, 6 months?

As a reader I was yearning, no, aching to know what I had missed out on in the supremely captivating life of myself over the past half a year. Really, it was tearing me up inside. So now, rotating back to the writer's point of view, I think I should probably write some sort of flashback blog or something to set the minds of my many, many fans at ease.
But then, another thought entered my mind, a four letter word which would send me on to write the insubstantial blog in front of you - trek. Who's bothered recording a whole 6 months of their life into a single blog? not me it would seem. Anyway, in the process of carrying out that unsavoury task I might realise how little I actually DO, and that wouldn't do at all. That would send me on a shame spiral so deeply coiled I might never, ever recover, and all my blogs would take on a real 'woe is me' vibe. No, that wouldn't do at all.

Instead, I've decided to give you little snippets of stuff relating to 'the missing months', as they're forthwith to be called, and hopefully this will give you an overall picture of what's changed and what's stayed the same, and give me something to actually write about in the absence of me having any kind of actual life. So here we go:

One thing that that has happened is that I've developed a bit of an interest in 'the theatre',
put in inverted commas for fear of sounding unforgivably gay. It all began with our 6th year play, in which I had a miniscule part and was the stage manager for (quite an honour really...ahem) ... I kind of regretted having signed up to do all that stuff sometimes when I was back after school every day doing this or that to help out, but the final product was completely worth it; seeing it all come together, seeing all the work everyone had done come into fruition, seeing the set I had helped to build, seeing the look on the faces in the audience - it was an unforgettable experience.
Since then I have been to see 2 plays, something I never would have considered doing beforehand because I had little interest, but now with an appreciation of the work that goes into them, the sense of intimacy and spectacle the finished work can create, I rushed headfirst into the first play that came my way. I'll give a brief summary of the plays:

The first one I saw was called Daily Bread, and was performed by the Dublin Youth Theatre company in the Templebar Arts Centre. I have to say the only real reason I went to this was because I knew someone who was in it. But it was absolutely amazing, really different to anything I had ever seen before (which is nothing I suppose... but anyway) . It was a play about the ratrace of the working world, with 7 work-weary work-orientated individuals talking about their lives in one long spiel, one persons speech running into the next, and the whole play was carried on in this way, in one long scene (this effect was so cool). I read a review of this play which said that because the cast were all in their late teens and early twenties, the play was an odd choice as the cast could not connect with the more mature characters they were meant to be portraying. This wasn't really a big factor in the end - I thought it was hilarious, and the actors definitely got something of the 30something officeworker across to me. One great line which I still remember, used by a highpowered, embittered, lonely executive woman to express her distaste for a waitress who tried to talk to her, had my sides splitting: 'I don't deserve to have an encounter with human misery just because I want some light refreshment'.

Right, so the first play was great, and I was hungry for more of the same. More of the same came along in the form of The Nose, which I saw only last night. This play, a post-modern production adapted from a work written by a Russian novelist called 'Gogol' (what a name!), was also on in the Templebar Arts Centre (as you may have guessed this isn't exactly a haunt of mine, I just saw the poster for The Nose there while I was going to see Daily Bread... yes, I'm a sham), this time in their main auditorium, which was really cool and dark and the set was absolutely incredible. The play was about a guy who wakes up without a nose, only to find that the nose has taken on an identity of its own and is causing mayhem for its previous owner. This sounds mental, and it really was - it was very surreal, but not too 'art' that it was pretentious or anything. The acting was particularly good, especially considering most of the 6 actors involved had to play at least 3 parts, and had some unbelievably rapid costume changes. The best scene out of the play was this one that was taking the piss out of t.v reporters, with one of the actresses playing this really over-the-top version of one. I couldn't stop laughing at her, she totally captured the whole t.v reporter bit, and she kept sitting down beside audience members and talking about them into her mic., which was absolutely hilarious.

So that's about all I can think to say about those, but hopefully I've got across the general feeling of what they were like. And I urge anyone who like me used to think theatre was a load of bollocks to give it a go. 'Don't knock it til you've tried it' as they say... As for me, I'll be looking out for plays meself, so if you hear of a good(cheap) one, tell me about it!

Don't forget to tune in again soon for my next tidbit of crap...