The Road Goes Ever On and On
Westward Expansion opened on Friday and seems to be going over well. One of the things that drew me to the Alliance in the first place was the quality of the people there. I’m not exactly the Old Man of Los Angeles Theatre, but I’ve been around enough to know that far too many companies are either vanity projects for one giant ego, giant balls of bickering or some other ugly little collection of neuroses (that’s what ACTORS are supposed to be.)
I say this so you know that when I say I love being with this cast, you will hopefully take it as something other than ‘what people always say.’ I don’t always say those things, but I really like these people.
I like the show, too, although I always have trouble discerning the ‘read’ - I’m pretty happy with the work I’m doing, everybody else is doing a good job, and Cecil’s a hell of a writer. The first review should come out this week or next, for what it’s worth. All in all, I expect this show to do well, artistically and otherwise.
Go see it. Right now. Well, not RIGHT now, but, you know, soon.
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I spent a good portion of Sunday at the Southern California Regional Bikram Yoga Championship, essentially by accident. Fun fact: Bikram is a dude.
I went along with Carla after rehearsal, in the interest of doing something I hadn’t done before. I need to get this out of the way right now, lest it give me a tumor: nothing in the world - nothing - can smell as bad as a giant room devoted to Bikram yoga. I don’t care how bad your bipedal snow cow smells, inside or out, this is worse. Apparently, they heat the room to 105 degrees for Bikram, which is oriented more towards strength and flexibility than other yogic disciplines. The room could probably hold, oh, 18,000 people. that’s 18,000 people bending and sweating in 105 degree heat. Hence the smell.
When I wasn’t wondering if my nose would shut down before I went into shock, I was admiring the competition. It works like so: each hopeful gets three minutes to perform seven poses (five compulsory, two they choose themselves.) The question of ‘competitive yoga’ was dealt with by explaining that, even though there were other people up there, it was still really about competing with one’s self. All I know is that the only pose I could have complete was the Rabbit, which could just as easily have been called the ‘Nap.’
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