Limited Perspective

A Ritual If I had written about Letters from Max, a Ritual , now on stage at Seattle Public Theater last night, I might have said I didn’t like it. I would have said there were missing pieces that made it a mere nice story, but not a complete play. You might have been surprised, because from my writing about theater, it seems that I like everything. The show is about words in various forms: letters, poems, inquiries, challenges, pleas, laments and more. On the website of the playwright, Sara Ruhl, it says, “This play shares letters and poems passed between Sarah Ruhl and her former student Max Ritvo, as he candidly discusses terminal illness and tests poetry's capacity to put to words what otherwise feels ineffable.” This morning, it came unlocked. The most important words are the last two of the title, “a ritual.” Sarah Ruhl really means it. Writing, sending, receiving and reading of letters is Sarah and Max’s life-sustaining ritual. The show is staged to show the ritual nature o...

A few years ago, I took a class at Freehold Theater called Solo Performance. The final session was a showcase, which we invited friends and others to attend. After it was over, I posted the script from my performance. Recently, I took another class at Freehold, Standup Comedy. Here is my set, as written, from the final session of that class last night.  Money is hard to come by, right  So when you get money, you want to make sure to save some of it.  Our government is trying to save money too  We have DOGE The Department of Government Efficiency  Trying to save all our money  We see how that’s going.  Because cheaper is not always better right? You skip the gas station sushi Maybe you don’t go to the cut-rate chiropractor You’re not looking for a good deal on a vasectomy  It’s always two for one, though  Let’s take an example from ancient history The Trojan Horse You remember that, right? The Greeks beat the Trojans by hiding inside a gian...