My husband just performed Wallace Shawnś The Fever for a handful of friends in the apartment. The Fever was meant to be done in living rooms for a small handful of people. He sat in a chair in front of us and read from the book, and from memory, (he actually did this in a production in Amman at a lounge like place that has a living room feel from memory.) I was graced with a performance by him once prior to this in Amman. I was the sole audience member for a 4am show in our apartment. I always start off with a gosh-thats-my-husband-doing-a-reading to being consumed by the power of the play and his performance. He pulled off the same effect again tonight. It was pretty much the same thing when I was first in Amman sitting thru 2 weeks of rehearsals for Antigone where he played Kreon. I think the play has more power NOW being out of the country (for me at least) where the pampered american begins visiting 3rd world countries and coming back to the consumption based society of the states and slowly cracking up from his visits realizing there is no answer to poor vs rich. His reading was good although more subdued then the late night reading in Amman where he let loose and scared the crap out of the Egyptian apartment custodian who happened to be washing cars outside near our open window.
Jibril had moments where I was riddled with goosebumps or wanting to bawl. I will sadly admit that I was overly concerned about our guests and getting the evening started with his reading. Once he started I was sucked into to his presentation and really not giving a poo about the rest of his audience. Its easy for me to forget this man is an incredibly talented actor. On a daily basis he is my husband, we have our usual daily moments of making each other crazy. Tonight I was reminded of this manś talent. Moments where he would choke up, or shout out with emotion in his reading I had visceral reactions. A simple straight reading with the correct emotions at the right time is all you need. This doesnt need to be over produced.
This is the link to the text of the play…
http://www.wischik.com/lu/senses/fever.html
Its monday night and there is little going on which is nice. Things are quiet. Weekends have been hell sleep wise unless you have some of ¨motherś little helpers¨ to aid with sleep. We are graced with a weekend techno club at the end of the alley where we live, and over the past couple weeks some brainiac had the brilliant idea to compete with yet another techno shit club in the basement of our building – which to me is about as enticing as walking into the house in the Blair Witch Project. We live on the 4th floor and have competing techno bass thumping and vibrating everything in the apartment until the wee hours of the morning. I am reminded of childhood vacations where the motels had the beds where you fed a couple quarters into a box on the night stand the bed would vibrate. Dont need no quarters here, the beds vibrate for free, sadly the childhood awe is long gone though. My famous dirty looks have no effect whatsoever on the bouncers. Must be losing my touch or being written off as old and unhip and there fore easily ignored — these damn kids today!! The guys keep talking about going down and getting their promised free drinks — bribes to keep them quiet about the noise. I just dont get it…Why would you want to go to a place with friends where conversation has to be shouted or mimed? Maybe if I was loaded to the gills on Ecstasy and/or acid and whatever other designer club drug is out there now maybe I could understand, but them days seem to be over. Gimme a nice quiet, low key pub anyday and I guess a steady supply of Geritol.
This quiet low key evening is lulling me to sleep…Which is a good thing, I am now too tired to ponder why Alex would gift Jibril with a camel hand puppet — for me to poop on!
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