review of the play, THE KENTUCKY CIRCLE

My Birthday weekend was made very special by M.'s good planning and time management skills. We went to a play, seven hours of drama... one could see it all in one day, or split it up, as we did, going both saturday and sunday and seeing two, three hour halves. The play won a pulitzer. The theater was small and the front row was within feet of the actors. I love that feeling. The story itself is from 92, and it shows. There was the deconstruction of the settler myths -- indian raping killers, the land grabbing after the civil war and by the mining companies, then the rise and fall into disrepair of the unions. The play spanned generations, and was supposed to be, according to one positive review, "attempting to do nothing less than tell the story of america." One could argue that the playwrite's vision was just a tad myopic for such granduer... were one a boof like me.There was, silly as it sounds coming from me, no love. Usually there is way too much love in drama for me -- the strictures of genre almost require a love interest, no matter how pasted into the picture it looks, and this particular subplot is usually the least interesting to me (at least since my adolescent horned-toadedness passed). No worries about too much mush in this Kentucky of the mind, though. Rapes of indians and slaves and kids impregnating whoever grows up closest, yes -- obligatory kisses? No. But there were good impulses admidst the craziness, and without them... history is incomplete.This kind of 'taking back that revisionist history' has already been taken back too many times for me to care too much. For me... of course, most of you boofs don't know half of what I do, and some of you are even too young to be expected to, so... ???The first half dealt with this take over by the whites of the america's, and then the wars fought to identify what laws we were going to live by, and on into the battles of the unions with the industrialists in the thirties and 1970's. The events were played out on the stage of a front porch of a ramshackle house on a kentucky mountain. The actor's were all actorly and playing for a stage -- all sweeping gestures and what would be seen in a movie as serious over acting... In fact, if I had to say there was something I would change about this thing, and of course, I do... which is my way of offering criticism that is not meant to imply that I know better, just think and feel differently --okay????I would have the actors do a lot more subtle acting. The small gestues that are the stuff of realism. Instead, this production was acted with the enthusiasm of a comedic musical. I believe director's are at the root of this kind of fake enthusiam for each and every word. Maybe I long to see realism where it isn't meant to be? I am a boof, and the dude who wrote the play knows a hell of a lot more about drama than me...M. and I both loved the show, though. I particularly liked all the gunshots. The guns were all those flintlocks like you saw on Danial Boone (who was a man, a big man, and in his early days he shot the porno's to prove it; i guess mike jackoffyourson owns the rights and only allows his very his closest inner circle of monekys to view them). BANG!!!A sign on the door going into the theater warned LIVE GUNSHOTS!!! I read those lovely words and was pretty damned happy I'm always armed and just wasted enough to use a gun. Of course, wet blanket M. did get kind of pissed when I pulled the smoking .38... when that first indian shot off an earsplintering blank. How was I to know, for sure, that those were blanks? I'm fucking glad M. grabbed my shooting arm or I would have had another manslaughter to buy off. Anyways, they still let us stay for the show, after our buddy who was in the show, Arch the Actor, vouched for us and promised to make sure I paid to get the hole in the stage fixed. Then they wanted me to check the gun... as you can imagine, that held up the production for a few minutes... finally they let me keep the .38 as long as the bullets were emptied out (you think I told him about my extra shells in my socks?).Anyways, to make a long story short... I loved the play, everyone should see it..


Steal from me and you will be cursed in such a way that your hands turn into worthless, jelly fish like appendages that sting your intimates. Or sued or something bad like that...