Los Angeles: An Armchair Perspective, “3-Pointer Plus the Foul”…

You see, it’s like this actually…

It’s fall in Los Angeles—and the days are warm and the nights are cold. (Sounds poetic.) I was a bit under the weather for the past few weeks and needed some time recuperate. So forgive my absence—if something like that concerns you. Continuing from my “armchair,” I’d like to share with you four more observations of Los Angeles.Enjoy!

Backwards Cap, No Mortgage

‘Sup, bro?

There’s a saying down in Texas: “All hat, and no cattle.” At face value the saying could simply be read as one who dons a large cowboy hat—obviously—but possesses no livestock (re: cattle). It too is analogous with the Gen-Xer term poser: one who tries (way too) hard but still doesn’t “get it,” a person who brags endlessly about their doings and accomplishments but has in fact built their person on a mountain of lies to make themselves look better… I think you can see where I’m going with this. I affectionately apply the saying “Backwards cap, no mortgage” to my fellow Angelenos.

Apartment “amenity” in LA…

Take away the sun, the view, the beach, the marijuana, the Benz, and the women—do that, and, well, you’ve left the contemporary Angeleno with holding nothing but a cup in his/her hand because no one here owns much of anything (re: property). Yes, there’s a spoiled, entitled, robber baron mercantile class living their best version of life here in La-La Land (and California at large) but for the other 85% they’re living in a de facto renter state. Even as far back as the seventies California has had problems with affordable housing. The rule book has been completely thrown out now though. Los Angeles, by way of Forbes magazine, has been listed as the worst American city for renters beating out San Francisco, New York and Miami. Since 2013, L.A. has been the most rent-burdened city in the country. Roughly 60% of Angelenos spend upwards of 40% of their income on rent. The ballpark for rent for a single-person unit averages $1,516 per month, while a family unit averages between $2,172 and $2,483 per month. And these are the rental prices for units that don’t come with refrigerators or stoves!

Jonestown Redux

“We all agree… We all agree… We all agree…”

Here. Drink this. Taste good, doesn’t it? No? Don’t like it? Well, like, what’s your problem, bro?

If for nothing else, living in Los Angeles has taught me one thing: that it’s just best to agree with everyone, all the time, on every issue, regardless out outcome, or context, NO MATTER WHAT! If you are on the receiving end of this, you may be sitting there scratching your head like, WTF!

Never take your eyes off your cocktail…

It’s been said that in New York people stab you in the front and in Los Angeles people stab you in the back… Well, you can imagine my shock and horror upon hearing this as someone who grew up in a flyover country (Louisiana). It made my drive west a wee bit stressful. Thankfully, I’m happy to report that there are no pulling of knives in Los Angeles; however, there is plenty nodding of heads. It’s like Jonestown all over again.

Now, I can’t speak about the so-called “pretentiousness,” or “phoniness,” or “fakeness” of Los Angeles; because, well, for one, I’m not sure that that’s a fair assessment of the city, and two, I’m not even sure that that exist. Nevertheless, I can speak about Angelenos need to agree—vehemently—with one another, because that’s actually palpable. It’s a borderline obsession even. Like any American city L.A. has its good and bad. So, no way am I suggesting to you that the city lacks any dissidents. You’re just hard-pressed to find them out gallivanting around.

When you try to fit in…

I think this need to constantly be in agreement comes down to a few factors. One: people here are way too nice. It’s true; Angelenos, no matter how overworked, over-taxed, and over-burdened they are, they somehow manage to always turn on their smiles. And smiles are infectious, especially if the people smiling at you are easy on the eyes. Two: it’s biologically and socially (and possibly metaphysically) rewarding—in the sense that our perception of such an effort could be recognized by someone else, who, in kind, could improve one’s lot in life. Studies have shown that whenever there’s scarcity or limited resources people tend to show this type of behavior (group-think). And as I have mentioned above, with close to 40% of our income already being allotted for rent, going against the grain could potentially lead to homelessness or yourself as your only friend. It used to be that people would fight over crumbs; well, in L.A. people nod their heads for them. Lastly, it may be holistic. At the end of the day, Angelenos just want their apartments, their jobs, their “things,” their “person” to come together and form like Voltron—and for all of it to be the absolute best ever! Even though it may just be “okay.” Just remember to keep comments like that to yourself; and God help you should you say them out loud.

You know, if my advice is worth anything…

 

Dirty Sole

As a wee lad I grew up in a poor black neighborhood. How poor was it? Well, in my neighborhood of yore people were so poor that if their kids didn’t have brand-new (“tennis”) shoes to wear to school they didn’t send them… What do brand-new shoes have to do with getting an education? The hell if I know; it never made much sense to me either.

Custom-made for the streets of LA

Avoiding the socioeconomic reasoning of so terrible a logic, it did shape my outlook on footwear. And, man, people in Los Angeles—Millennials especially—love them some dirty sneaks. I kind of wish I could do a re-do on grade school for my childhood classmates. If only they had grown up in Los Angeles they’d probably be doing a lot better in life. (Maybe a few of them are.)

Lookin’ goooood….

At first I used to think it was a Hipster thing, but they’ve moved on to wearing that really old style of Oxford which has now gone mainstream. And all the means is that the Hipsters have most likely moved on to another type of shoe. Trendsetters.

And let me be clear: I’m not talking about a little scuff marks here, a scratch there… It’s like a full-on competition to get the shoes as dirty as possible. I’ve even seen couples out-and-about with matching dirty sneakers. It’s fascinating. I’ve even drunk the Kool-Aid (heh heh) on this and have several pairs of dirty sneakers (Converse) in the closet.

Table for “1”?

Just me tonight…

L.A.’s billed as a party town, but there’s a suburban and outdoorsy vibe to the place also. But for Yups, though, L.A. lacks a true happy hour scene due to the gridlocked nature of the roadways during evening rush hour. So when the dinner rush hits—usually right around 8PM—larger groups looking for a bite to eat get top priority. This town gives a big F.U. to the single diner.

And it’s always awkward walking into a restaurant alone. The host/hostess looks at you all weird and the first place she/he turns to when scanning the dining room to accommodate you is the bar. I kid you not. Every damn time! I’ve been here for eleven years and not once have I ever been offered a table when I walk enter a restaurant alone. What if I was a recovering alcoholic or didn’t drink alcohol at all? Then what?

Kevin knows…

I’m sure this happens to single diners in every metropolitan American city, but Los Angeles really bungles this one bad. And if it’s not the host/hostess screwing you over, it’s the “server” (waiter) who’s pissed he/she has to wait on one person—because when you’re working for tips the more heads the better, amirite?

There’s have been times that I’ve gone out to eat and have asked for a table and I have been told that the open tables I see in front of me are reserved for large parties; some even sit open for another forty-five minutes while I sit at the bar checking the clock on my cell phone. I’m like, I could’ve eaten and have gone by the time those with reservations were set to arrive. And it’s always nope! You can’t sit there because if we don’t sit the maximum amount of people at the open tables we’re all gonna die…. Best bet hitting a restaurant in L.A. is to make an Open Table reservation online for three, then asked—demand!—to be seated and immediately order your meal. (Food menus are online now.) When the “server” finally realizes that you’re the only one sitting there and comes by to ask why, lie (sorry) and tell the “server” that you’re friends are stuck in traffic. Works every time.

Oh, and another thing…

Well, I’ve gotta run! Be on the lookout for my next installment later this month. Happy Halloween!

Los Angeles: An Armchair Perspective, The Sidewalks of Los Angeles…

You see, it’s like this actually…

… are freakin’ disgusting! And I say this as a person who moved to Los Angeles from New Orleans where tourists treat the streets of the French Quarter like it’s their own personal waste receptacle, and the city itself determines the success of each Mardi Gras by the amount of trash picked up off the ground—literally weighing it by the kilo—by prison trustees on Ash Wednesday (the day after Fat Tuesday) morning. So, I know what it’s like to have to high-step over and zigzag through random objects left on the ground.

Fresh squeezed!! My favorite!!

But I’ve never seen filth on the sidewalk to the level it is in Los Angeles—and an entire populous so laissez-faire about the aesthetics of the sidewalks they (we) traverse… And the condition of the sidewalks is just the tip of the iceberg to what’s going on in this here mega city! (More on this later in the series.) Los Angeles proper is the quintessential 21st century urban obstacle course bumf*ck bonanza.

So smooth… NOT!

Honest to goodness, I can’t even tell you the last time I walked in a straight line down a city block… If it’s not people obstructing my way; then some random object (that has no business being there) is. You know, Angelenos love to bitch & moan about the need for more HOV lanes and less billboards on the freeways, but forget all that noise: what’s up with these goddamn sidewalks?

Post-apocalyptic.

Some make the argument that this is what Big City Livin’ is all about—but have you seen the sidewalks of Taipei or the city-state of Singapore, or Geneva? (You can eat off the ground in any of those three cities. Whenever I drop food on the ground in L.A., I say a small prayer to myself and just kiss my food goodbye.) So, I have to strongly disagree with that sentiment/analysis. This comes down to a matter of personal responsibility and civic pride. I do my part by not throwing trash (or anything else for that matter) on the ground. As for my fellow Angelenos, well…

Sad reality…

I mean, we all look down nowadays because of our cell phone addiction—so how could Angelenos not notice how filthy the majority of the sidewalks have become? At this point it’s negligible what we’ve allowed to happen to the second largest city in the United States. I feel like this city should be a showpiece… About that: I’m always within earshot of a conversation where I can’t help but overhear an Angeleno talking to their friends visiting them from out of town where they deploy “the excuse” on why the streets of L.A. look like shit. (Excuse my French.) It goes something like, “Things are getting a lot better—don’t mind the trash.” Or “It’s improving. You should’ve seen how this area used to look.” Or “This neighborhood doesn’t usually look like this, there must’ve been a festival yesterday or something.” Or failing those comments, they simply laugh it off… What does this kind of response say about the psyche of the people living here?

Anybody need a new mattress and box spring set??

I was out over the weekend with an acquaintance of mine and I happened to chat up a group of four from Orlando who were in Los Angeles for the first time. Their travel agent got them a great deal at a downtown Los Angeles hotel, and they were shocked at how filthy the streets of L.A. were. One of the young women—paraphrasing here, but pretty close to her exact words—commented to me on the condition of L.A.’s sidewalks to this effect:

“At first we thought they were filming a movie, because there was just trash everywhere and random people walking around. But the more we walked around, the more we started to realize that every street was like this. I got scared and eventually we went back to our hotel and just swam in the pool for a while. We looked on the internet to find some spots that were safe because we didn’t feel like there were any near our hotel.”

What the young woman is referring to is L.A.’s infamous Skid Row and the surrounding downtown area currently under revitalization but is still being treated like a junk yard/outdoor homeless shelter.

Sidewalks of LA…

Mind blown, yet?

Darn outdoor patios…

Here’s what you’re guaranteed to encounter when walking the streets of Los Angeles: broken pavement, cigarette butts, soiled baby diapers, memory foam, cleaning products, various household appliances (especially bent ironing boards), street musicians, (illegal) street vendors, celebrity/superhero impersonators, construction equipment, old mattresses, furniture (sectional couches especially), used travel luggage, flight itineraries, porn magazines/flyers, business cards/flyers, loose strips of paper, empty plastic bottles (OMG!), outdated computer monitors, children’s toys, jumper cables, worn tires, old televisions and flat screens, discarded food containers (my favorite is the empty potato chip bag), used syringes, bloody tampons, loose coins, receipts, valet tickets, (gang) graffiti, aerosol cans, homeless encampments, stray animals, clipboard activists, Jehovah witnesses, protest mobs (there’s like one every weekend), parking meters, dog shit, human shit, pigeon shit, puddles of “liquid”, illegal immigrants, clapboards, outdoor patio/sidewalk seating areas, newspaper stands, mailboxes, dog bowls, trampled-on/half-eaten pieces of food, cardboard boxes, milk crates, soiled blankets/bed sheets, felled tree branches, random articles of clothing, baby strollers, mannequin heads, shopping carts, shards of glass, etc… Basically, the streets of Los Angeles have become a de facto landfill—if I haven’t driven that point home any further. Admittedly so, the sanitation department of Los Angeles is fighting a losing battle, one they’re none too concerned about because they’re all union! (And stressed the hell out.) Union meaning—we’ll get to it when we get to it, and better to let it pile up first so we don’t lose our job or government contract staying on top of this madness.

When it rains, the sewer grates look like this…

Photos tell a much better story, so I’ll cut this blog post short and leave you with a few extras. And mind you, none of these were staged and all of them were taken at random while I was out running errands… As mentioned above, Angelenos have turned a blind eye to filth piling up on the sidewalks, or again they laugh it off and opt to deploy “the excuse” when cornered on this issue. But trust me: they’re fully aware of this issue.

Watch your step—literally!

After being out here on the west coast for more than a decade, I’ve learned that most people find that the best solution to this problem is to just run away from it. So the more affluent Angelenos—and the ones willing to pay a premium on rent that is already exorbitant and unaffordable—have ran to the very outskirts of L.A. (Santa Monica, Orange County, San Gabriel Valley, South Bay to name a few areas) cramming themselves into every nook and cranny of the outlying region so as not to have to face this very issue while those unwilling to pay a king’s ransom for rent are left to zigzag their way through this filth. But even the perimeter of Los Angeles is now starting to succumb to the Filth Monster, and soon there won’t be anywhere else to run should you (we) want to continue to live in southern California. Me, I’m off the opinion that the sidewalk issue—along with others—will get worse before it gets better. So, if you still feel like L.A.’s the place for you: be on high-alert, do some extra squats at the gym, and be prepared to high-jump and side-step your every destination.

Sofa-microwave-old T-shirt combo!

Rando dog food!

I’ve banged a knee on so many of these…

An old desk… seriously??

Like, you had to walk past a dumpster…

Gross!

Til Next time….

Oh, and another thing…

 

Confessions of an American Amateur Theater-Reviewer: Alcestis

Confessions of an American Amateur Theater-Reviewer
Post Preliminary Confessions: Closing Thought

Comedy. Drama.

Well, boys and girls and aliens—this is it! Anything else pertaining to this here monthly blog series (confessional) will next be seen in book (e-book) form most likely… Packing all that I’ve said into an e-book is an idea I’m still wavering on—but ultimately that was what this endeavor was about in the first place. Should I still go through with the e-book, it’ll be at a relatively low cost to you the consumer and loyal supporter of the wave I’m on. I’m hoping for my e-book to “hit the shelves” at or around the price of $1.99 USD. (Life for Big G began as a runaway. I’m not all too sure how Amazon determines the costs of e-books for those who choose to self-publish and then use the Amazon Marketplace to hawk their wares, but I’m hoping that I can sell my e-book at $1.99 USD even, for sentimental reasons. The very first purchase I made way back when—when I began life “on my own”—was a five-piece order of chicken nuggets at McDonald’s for one dollar and ninety-nine cents (plus tax; Fall of 1996, I’ll never forget!)… A very profound moment in my life; the kind of small purchase that paid big dividends—literally! Oh, and no need to show any concern about that whole situation; I’ve moved on from it, clearly. It’s just that for this next phase of my life, I’d like to have it begin with the same price point, only this time the other way around… Anybody out there got two dollars for ya boy?)

Sometime last November, I think, I had a sit-down with myself and wondered, why hadn’t I had anything published? I have at least twenty black & white composition notebooks and an old, beat-up Dell laptop worth of solid material—what gives? I’m talking poetry, free-form, essays, reviews, news articles, biographies, short stories, partially-completed and completed novels, epistles, screenplays (le sigh); plus, a bunch of other start-and-stop thoughts and ideas that if I didn’t have to work seventy damn hours a week, there’s no doubt in my mind I could finish writing them… All of it just sitting there, unreleased, doing absolutely squat. After about a day or two of thinking it over, I figured out what I could do with most of it. But all that thinking, unfortunately, led me right back down the same road I had reluctantly travelled many times before: I could query magazines and the like for my poetry and short stories—but they tend to favor college students and established authors, so nah! (New voices, my ass!); I could query film agencies and literary managers as well as submit my screenplays to screenwriting contests… Not so much nowadays. The soup du jour in Hollywood right about this time is everything Woman (I’m not venting; it is what it is) and, again, I know the pain and misery of this marketplace and how cruel it can be regardless of that bias reality (Don’t for one second buy into the so-called “Diversity Initiative” that’s been taking shape in the American film industry for the past few years. Personally, I still think that if you’re a white man pursuing screenwriting (filmmaking) in Hollywood you’ve got it made in the shade. [I’m not venting; it is what it is.] But all “diversity” really means is that a TV show’s writers’ room will hire—for one season more or less—a “woman of color” before me—a “man of color”—because with that one writing position filled in this fashion they’re able to check off two boxes as far as Quotas™: woman and “person of color.” [How I loathe this term “person of color.” We all have a color. And two, I loathe this process even more. I much rather know I got into the room on my own merit rather than a showrunner needing to have a *ahem* “person of color” placed in the seat so as not to get fined, or lynched, or become a trending topic on Twitter or whatever.] Again, I’m not complaining or mad about the process; I’m just telling you that that’s way the cookie actually crumbles.); or I could once again reach out to the New York Literati and let them know about of my novels—but that’s also a no-go because they too are all about Woman—and what’s even weirder is that book agents can be quite cranky in their rejection e-mails and letters; or perhaps I could just call a spade a spade and admit to myself that “I suck!” and be thankful that I do have some outlet for my creativity via my own blog (#TINWIPA – Whoop! Whoop!) and I’ll just have to be content with the five or so views I get each blog post (I’m not calling anybody out or anything like that, but I do go over the numbers and am fully aware of how abysmal they are.); or I could publish my own stuff…

It’s not really a boon—although it could be!—and I’m already far behind those who’ve taken to this course of action (self-publishing; self- anything). However, it is disconcerting to say the least. My (slack) revolutionary spirit doesn’t like how easily one’s voice is suppressed or how if one chooses to hold an opinion opposite to that of a closed-off group (re: elitist; union) one is painted as a dissenter, or worse, their material “isn’t any good so you can’t be in our club” and they are quickly jettisoned to the outskirts of Society™. Indeed, these truly are some trying times in America—the world perhaps—for myself and others who are having to seek alternative routes to be heard, to add to Pop Culture, to contribute to the “conversation” happening in Society™. I mean, there is a sort of je ne sais quoi about being brought to the fore by the nation’s established institutions (Hollywood, Washington Post, The New Yorker, Julliard, The Whitney, etc.) but does one have to be born into high birth (re: a wealthy family and/or nepotism) or risk going 100K into the hole for a college diploma just to have access, to have a say? Is this the best possible vetting process we have available? How exactly does the “little guy/gal” truly have a real chance if he/she doesn’t get the scholarship/stipend/voucher?

All of this is weighty at the moment—now, presently the end of 2017; December, that is—but the seriousness of the matter was palpable last November… I easily could’ve just put whatever story I had in any of my composition notebooks or on my hard drive into e-book form and that would’ve been that… I might still possibly, but I wanted to get a better understanding of the e-publishing process, going through it with new material (most of it not my own) first, then on the next go-round with full-fledged confidence of the process—because it’s not just my voice I’m concerned about. I’d like to either help others go through the e-publishing process, or open up a small press of my own and find other voices. (Can you say First Amendment? Or, Big G can you spot talent?) So, I’d like to think of Confessions of an American Amateur Theater-Reviewer as a “mixtape,” my very first mixtape at that! It’s free online for those who go to my blog, but for those who support the wave all I’m asking is $1.99 USD.

Admittedly so, I do have one novel and one screenplay I’ll most likely get behind next calendar year (2018). But as far as everything else I’ve written or plan to write, self-publishing will be the move, starting first with Confessions due in e-book form some time second quarter of 2018 and then later in the year a collection of poetry, free-form, and short stories which I’m really excited about. Again, this is all still pending… The e-book version of Confessions, if I do in fact self-publish it (Right now it’s 55-45, yes), will include all twelve stage play reviews first posted on my blog but with slight modifications due to me moving them from the blog and into e-book form and, of course, the necessary revisions due to misspellings and syntax and grammar. It will also feature original artwork (and cover design) from a close friend of mine whose art will work in tandem with what I’ve written. Also, the actual “confessions” part will be expounded on as all the ones (3) discussed so far have been preliminaries. I’m even going to include an additional stage play review that’ll be in the e-book version only. Sorry. I really do hate to pimp myself out like this but, hey, what can I say? I’m a capitalist through and through… And lastly, I will stitch together any loose threads and incoherent thoughts I otherwise forgot about due to my personal life getting in the way or my self-imposed deadline… Sounds good? Great! Let’s wrap things up like we’ve done so the eleven times prior, I now put away the merchandise and ask that you turn your attention to December’s stage play, Alcestis.

The Death of Alcestis, Pierre Peyron [MotionAge Designs]

Title: Alcestis (438 BCE)
Playwright: Euripides
Time Period: Classical Greek Period
Plot: A retelling of the mythical story of Alcestis who forfeits her own life in place of her husband’s.
Dope Line(s):

[Line 142]

CHORUS
How could the same person be dead yet still
live?

[Line 355-363]

ADMETUS
Even in sleep it is sweet to see
those whom one loves for however long they can stay.
If I had the words and music of Orpheus
to enchant Persephone or her husband,
charming them with songs to take you out of Hades,
then down would I go, and neither Pluto’s dog
nor Charon, the dead man’s guide, leaning on his oar,
could stop me before I raised you back to the light.
But—that won’t work—so, wait for me until I die…

[Line 383]

ALCESTIS
I who die for you am all the underworld
demands.

Sacrificial Altar

Here we are. Together again. One last time, possibly… Especially, if you skipped over the above portion and came straight to the actual review. No, nothing of too much importance that you need to backtrack to the beginning. The above can easily be summarized in a line or two down here later… However, last we spoke I mentioned to you that I’d be doing a side-by-side comparison/review and I immediately started in on The Cocktail Party which owes its skeletal structure at best to this month’s stage play, Alcestis by classical Greek playwright Euripides. My time with you is limited, but I implore you to read up on as much of Euripides as you can. We currently have eighteen of his plays—intact!—out of a possible ninety to draw inspiration from. For some, Euripides might be familiar to you through his more recognizable works: Medea, Electra, or The Trojan Women. Or even having received praise from the great bard himself, Shakespeare. (We’ve been over him!) A true genius in every sense of the word, Euripides along with Aeschylus and Sophocles (They always come in threes, don’t they?) pretty much laid down the foundation for how us writers should build our stories. Not bad a trio; Euripides especially.

Zeus thunder god

Scholars feel that Euripides added new dimensions to the elements of comedy, and because of the realism, complexity and intrigue in his stories he may have possibly been a head of his time. He often scoffed at the fact the he was never able to consistently win at festival which bothered him well into his exile in Macedonia. (Google it!) Like most of today’s Hollywood blockbusters, Euripides had an over-reliance on the deus ex machina plot device when it came to resolving matters in his stories. But how can you throw rocks at the man who’s done so much for the mask of drama?

Euripides

A bit of a social critic in his time, he used myths and real-life stories of his day to weave into his tragedies. This blend of fake and real extends well into today in how we search for subtext in our stories and nod to ourselves when we comprehend the fictional elements (lightness/darkness as metaphors). And I guess that’s what drew Eliot to this story, a somber retelling of the mythical story of Queen Alcestis who sacrifices her own life so that her husband King Admetus can live… The inevitability of the death, the duality of how we are in public versus private, and unrequited love all show up in small traces in Cocktail. And for the most part Eliot flips a lot of Alcestis and makes it his own. But the one element that stands out is the idea of “returning.” In both Alcestis and Cocktail Party two women are returned to men having been “dead” to them.

Greek Grim Reaper (Thanatos)

A simple online search tells me that Alcestis is considered to be a satyr play, meaning that is a serious drama in both tone and theme, but is infused with bits of comedy. Okay, fair. But I have to be honest: the language, though good throughout most of it, never gave me the impression that there were parts to this play that were intended to be funny. So, it was a bit of a shock to me when I read this was so afterwards. If anything, there’s the slight possibility that one could be put off by this play, especially when you consider how King Admetus and Queen Alcestis came to be in their little predicament at the start of the play in the first place…

Satyrs don’t discriminate!

Alcestis takes place over the course of a single day—oh, and how convenient this is!—in Pherai (Pherae), an ancient town in southeastern Thessaly (present day Velestíno, Greece) at the palace of Admetus. His palace is under the protection of the god Apollo for reasons I’ll try to make concise in just a moment. Let’s just say for now that Euripides probably didn’t intend to have his work survive this long, or maybe he expected us humans living here in the twenty-first century to know chapter and verse on all our Greek myths and poems and bothered not to get in depth with the details. (Also, I read a translation of Charles R. Beye’s interpretation of Euripides’ Greek which itself had been copied over again and again by others and Charles is merely doing the best he can to articulate in English what Euripides was intending to say about a myth—in Greek—for those watching the play (the BCE crowd) who were already in the know about the myth whereas I was clueless to all of the intricate details of the myth beforehand and am still fuzzy about them afterwards. Whew!) Anyhoo, in a rare break from classical Greek narrative structure, Apollo speaks the audience about why (Queen) Alcestis is near her death bed and delivers it so in a tidal wave of exposition.

Show time at the Apollo!

All right, here goes: Alcestis’ dad, King Pelias, in wanting to marry off his young daughter had an oddly specific and bizarre stipulation for potential suitors: harness a lion and a boar to a chariot. (Don’t ask!) Okay… So Admetus has the ultimate cheat code because his bestie is a god (Apollo) who goes on to help Admetus through this task and a series of other more oddly specific tasks leading up to and past the point of consummation/marriage with Admetus. (I have to quickly throw in that Alcestis is Admetus’ cousin—Ew!) So, Apollo continues to get Admetus out of jams as well as extend his life until the Moirai make a new contract that states that if Admetus wants to keep stretching out his time on earth he has to get someone to volunteer to die in his place. Fast forward through a bit of business with his human friends and his parents who all think it’s absurd to give up their lives for his—rightfully so. And it’s in the midnight hour that Alcestis, the supposed love of his life, comes through in the clutch and offers up her life for his. Boom! I’ve just given you the Cliff Notes version of what it took forever for Apollo to say, although his language was way better than mine.

Hercules Wrestling with Death for the Body of Alcestis by Frederic Lord Leighton

Yup, that’s the gist of it. The plot on this one is quite thin and doesn’t involve a whole lot. The stage play is basically a series of broken “interludes” in between the Chorus going in for an extended period of time, singing and soap-boxing as they do—until a supposedly happy ending. (We’ve discussed the Chorus before, haven’t we?) In one interlude we see Death (Thanatos); in another we watch as Alcestis says her goodbyes to her husband and children (only the son speaks; why is that?) before she croaks; in another a Slave fills Heracles (Hercules) in on all that has transpired earlier in the day at the palace; then in two separate interludes Admetus and Heracles talk it out like men!; and finally the climax: Alcestis and Admetus are reunited upon Heracles bringing Alcestis back from Hades. I usually make it a point to hide much of what happens in a play but there’s no point in doing so with Alcestis. The play was a breeze to read; it was maybe eleven hundred lines (1,163). And it packs a punch for how light it is! Eliot, I see what you did there… Make Heracles the Uninvited Guest, turn Admetus into Edward, and turn Alcestis into Lavinia, dope!

Mask On, Mask Off

I would like to believe that this plays holds up in today’s world but I’m not so sure who out there would die so that their loved one might live—especially, if said loved one is purely looking to stave off his/her own death for superficial reasons. It’s possible maybe, but I’m so sure. So, no, this play doesn’t hold up… Now from the standpoint of how we act in public versus private, I believe Euripides may be on to something—because we all wear masks in public. But seeing as Eliot squeezed most of the juice out of this fruit, and the fact that there’s better material out there with the public/private theme, I don’t see the need to blow the dust off this one again unless you just wanna play dress up. However, I am glad that I’ve read Alcestis and look forward to reading all of the other Greek tragedies, or as many as I can get my hands one… In closing, this blog series has been quite an endeavor. It’s the most unorthodox thing I’ve done and totally at odds with how I write. Generating words each month for material I’m going in blind on is challenging; and to be honest: I don’t know I want to do this again. I usually have a certain through-line or theme I discuss with material I can sit with day in and day out and even if it took me a year to write, it all involved one piece. Yet and still , I challenged myself and I glad with the outcome. Like I said in the above, changes will have to be made if the plan is to put this blog series into book form. But that’s an issue I’ll face in 2018. Right now boys and girls and aliens, I have to figure out what my plans are for New Year’s Eve!

 

Thanks for coming!

Rating: 3/5