Limited Perspective

I have a review on the Sound on Stage blog. Here is the link: https://www.thesoundonstage.org/stage-reviews/stage-review-life-on-the-moon-baked-theatre-workshop   Photo credit: Cat Brooks

Look at these two sets. I’m fascinated with sets. The one on the top is for UW Drama’s current play, They Don’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! This photo is from a few steps up the center aisle of the Jones Playhouse during intermission. I hadn’t noticed in-person, but in the photo it almost sort of floats. It reminded me of the set for The Case for the Existence of God at ACT last year, bottom photo, taken from the front row.That set really did just float there. I still can’t articulate what that small, contained space with the lid off did, but it was affecting. Maybe it’s as simple as that. The two characters repeatedly meet in that little office until the drama boils over and the lid comes off. In the UW play, it’s the opposite. The show is a farce (with heart and a real bite.) The characters repeatedly stray off the linoleum squares to play various manic scenes outside the apartment and to talk to you and me in the audience. It’s flat on the ground and connected to the world, not floating at...

  You left ground and sky weeping, mind and soul full of grief. No one can take your place in existence or in absence. - Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī I shared this quote on Facebook years ago. It’s from the 13th century Persian poet known as Rumi. I don’t know what prompted me to share it at the time, but it came up on my “memories” list recently. I wonder what it means. No one can take your place. That one is easy enough. We all have had the thought that someone we have lost is irreplaceable. But what about the other part, the part that says their absence is irreplaceable? What could that mean? Google AI Overview has this: In existence: Everyone has a singular role and purpose that no one else can fulfill. In absence: The space left by a person's departure is unique and cannot be filled by anyone else. But is that it? Don’t those mean the same thing? David Byrne said, “Say something once. Why say it again?” It seems there could be deeper, less pat, and more contradictory (hopefully,...