The Lesson -- Part 1:

The Lesson -- I've known a few things about this show since the director was first contemplating putting it up this year.

Hazen Markoe is the director, and I have been in at least two shows with him. He's a long-time TC theatre veteran, and all sorts of folks have seen him in something, or worked with him. The show stars Carney Gray, who the last sentence also describes.

And then there's Michelle Schwantes! Michelle is a talented actress who I've had a crush on for years. Anyway, she's playing the student in this show, and sent me a bit of info on how she has prepared for the role.

We'll talk more on that in a moment. First, I want to address something. Ionesco once was one of my favorite playwrights, then I read his lengthy interview in the book Playwrights at Work, and I came to the conclusion that what I originally thought was brilliance on the part of the playwright was really an overgrown frat boy jerking around for his own masturbatory purposes. So, I no longer have time for Ionesco on his own merits.

That means that I have to be impressed by the directing and the acting for an Ionesco show to even matter to me.

That brings us back to Michelle's methods of approaching the work. She approached the work in a strict script analysis way. "I wanted the story to wash over me several times and lead me in which direction to venture," Schwantes explained. Because the play is so heavily text based, and often static physically, it was a challenge that she approached very seriously. Michelle is a woman with an extensive dance and movement background. Physicality is one of her strong points. Physicality whilst holding still can be just as vibrant as that which is in motion, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she's got up her sleeve.

Hazen has mentioned to me a few times about the humor and slapstick he plans to incorporate, and the blurb he has online about the play mentions the Marx Brothers, which I think is always a good thing. From a directorial realm, Markoe is assigning to the show more meaning than Ionesco might himself. That being said, he's choosing to look at modern issues of education and the faults with our system, as well as the politcs of our modern era. Since this is technically an absurdist play, I guess that's not unfitting...at all.