14/48

Joke time. How many Seattle-based drama nerds does it take to create fourteen plays in forty-eight hours? Who knows? What I witnessed tonight were not "plays." "Plays" are surely not collections of inside jokes wrapped around mock-plywood-bedroom-stage-pieces and set to the tune of "earthy" vibrado housebands. No, I would call that a depressing and alienating dinner party (in an IKEA showroom), or a night spent in an abandon warehouse with 200 people who don't know me but know each other. That is not "THEATAH"...that is inspiration drained from my face, that is high school, that is just. fucking. painful.

'Hensani Sefari' consisted of an erotic moth, three hikers and a fishnet. The moth was sensual. This, I suppose, was the joke, since moths are not usually sensual. This play made me feel bad. It hurt me. The words coming out of the characters mouths came too fast, like someone who rushes through life, barely noticing who or where they are or the affect they might be having on people. Actors relied on cliche character constructions, that maybe reflected a minute of intelligent thought. Nothing surprised me. It was like watching a clip reel of all the times I've ever been fake and awkward around people. I can just go and do that in my real life, thank you very much.

'When I Slip Out to Play.' This play contained the only funny line in the entire first act. A fairy was talking about how she gets high off her own pixie dust by snorting it up her nose. I had the feeling: hmm. Wow. Maybe I can laugh now, a little bit, at life. This feeling was incredibly rare, and so I tried to soak it up by laughing a little bit louder than the way I felt inside. The rest of the piece was just a mess, and weird, and sad, and stupid. I guess it was meant to be a play about "the secret lives of toys" a la Toy Story, but didn't that come out over a decade ago? Yes, yes, I'm pretty sure it did. The audience was so rapt, so in love with their own friends, that certain characters didn't even have to do anything to get a laugh. All they had to do was like, stand up, or sit down, and boom: laughter. I wish that was my life. No, wait, I don't. I'd hope people wouldn't laugh at the dumb things I do, because then I couldn't trust them. I'm worried about these people. Do they realize they're not funny? The idea that they've been living under this false reality is totally scary to me. Jesus.

'Wilderness' was a play about a bunch of high schoolers who go out camping. One girl played a very loud cheerleader type character, while another was the classic nerdish girl. The cheerleader had a very loud voice. That was her "thing." She said everything really, really loudly and the crowd erupted in laughter. One time, she threw her cell phone down on the stage, and it bounced, and she got more laughter. I tried shooting her evil eyes but it didn't work: she was still soo loud. The other girl gave the only felt performance in the entire night. I could semi-believe the words coming out of her mouth. They maybe reflected a few hours of thought rather than five seconds of thought. She knew this character. It was close to her. Maybe it was her. Maybe she asked to play "herself."

'Just Drink it' was the worst play of all. It simply made no sense, had no coherent plot, no believable characters. It was loosely about lesbianism: this is somehow still a taboo, I guess (although it's really, terribly not). It was also about 'space landings' and weird magical potions that may or may not do anything. People in the audience "aw, awwoood" the lesbian scenes (you know, like with a whistle) which made me feel like the playwright could have simply slipped a boob FTW with this audience. I mean, it was just such a bad, dumb audience. You really could have done anything, and they would have laughed. Bad acting = more laughs. Stupid plots = cheers, yelling, applause. A boob slip would have likely brought the house down.

I can't tell you about the second act because I left after the first.