Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” celebrated its 15th anniversary on Valentine’s Day.  I saw it with three women from different generations:  a young woman in her early 20’s (a personal trainer/reflexologist); another woman whom I’d guess to be in her mid-30’s (a playwright and actor) and her 82 year old mother.

After the show we unanimously said, “I want to see that again.”  The power of listening to the stories had shed a layer of dead skin to allow for the intake of fresh breath that satisfied a dry soul.  The monologues ranged from happy discoveries to sorrowful mourning about femininity and the power of the vagina:  its symbolism and its physical attributes.

The monologues is an anthology of interviews of women from different backgrounds.  The interviewees were asked such questions like, “What would it wear?” “What would it say?”.  These brought about the most passionate and whimsical answers.  There is not any whimsy in giving a voice to a part of a woman’s anatomy that houses her wisdom and her power.   About a quarter of the audience were men.  I think everyone walked away with relief (and not from waiting for the show to finish), but with hearts more open and joyful.

The opening monologue describes how the word vagina in itself sounds unappealing to the ears, like the grating of a fingernail across the chalkboard.  “Vagina,” spoken without emotion. “Vagina”, spoken as a question.  “Vagina,” spoken with demand.  It sounds more like a disease or a medical instrument.  “Pass me the vagina.”

Then the story telling began.  There was the story of a young woman who was raped by a family friend when she was 10 years old.  After many years of being ashamed of her body she was awakened to the beauty of her sexuality by another woman who showed her how to love herself and her body.  She was 16 years old when the healing began.  Another story was from an elderly woman.  She recalled her first date with a boy who was “a real catch”, the term used back in her day.  She described his passionate kiss that surprised and shocked her.  It caused her body to create  a “flood” on the bench seat of his brand new Belair.  He said it smelled like sour milk, unlike his changed mood.  He drove her home in silence and this silence she carried to heart.  She locked up her heart, never to allow for ecstasy to flood her being, except for glimpses of bliss with fantasies of Burt Reynolds.  But always, her fantasies ended with Burt leaving her at the table of a fancy restaurant in Atlantic City, because she created a flood embarrassment in front of his peers, Sammy Davis Jr. and the other boys of the brat pack.  She accused Eve Ensler, “What’s a woman like you going around interviewing old women about that thing down there?”  The down there she also called “the cellar”.  She acquiesced with a a confession that she did feel better, as she’d never told anyone about that.

I’ve watched myself change over the years in my acceptance of myself and the world around me.  I’m grateful that I can still change.  I was raised in a very strict Roman Catholic environment.  A school bus picked me up to attend a private all girls Catholic schools where nuns taught and ruled my 6 to 8 hours of tutelage.  Another bus took me home, and just before 6pm my mother rounded up the household to recite the Angelus at 6:00 pm on the dot.  (I always wanted to know why at 6 pm and not 3 am when we’re all suppose to be in bed fast asleep.)   Worse yet, the rosary would ensue, and the drone of the Hail Marys and Our Fathers would put me into a trance that would rock me from my kneeling position to sit on my haunches.  That would be offensive to God, I thought, so I’d kneel back up.  The only real break from the inane boredom would be the announcement of a new mystery that varied based on the day of the week.  I liked Sundays which comprised of the Glorious Mysteries.

All that background told, I guess my figurative rape was that of my mind and soul.  There was the systematic indoctrination of the “Roman Empire” mentality (a reference from the book “The Heroine’s Journey” by Murdoch.)  The word vagina was dirty in the culture I was brought up in.  When I got older after experienced a little more of the outside world and being married I was bold enough to talk about my sexuality with my mother.  She would get annoyed with me.  She couldn’t control me anymore, but she could still choose to ignore me or shut me down by not responding to my questions or my musings.  She’d say things like, “Why do you have to talk about those things?”  Well, why not?  We’re only talking.  What’s the harm of speaking your thoughts? or did the priest tell you it’s a sin to express your feelings or to question authority?

When I got home from the play I met a neighbor while walking the dog.  I told her I saw the Vagina Monologues.  The reaction was shock that she could barely hide.  The word vagina offended her, I think.  I know she’s a religious woman.  To soften the blow I said, “I know the word Vagina is harsh to some people.”  She nodded and seemingly swallowed back something, I don’t know, “an idea” or “an opinion”.  “It was really good,” I said and tried to explain what the play was about.  But she was not really interested and we moved on to other less intense topics.

Not too far along the block I met another two neighbors.  (I know a lot of people on my block because of my dog.  They often ask about her.)  They’re a couple of lesbians.  I said, ‘Hey, I saw the Vagina Monologues tonight.  It was really good.”  I expected they would be more tolerant or excited to know more about it.  But no.  They either didn’t hear me or chose to ignore what I said.  One of them said, “I can’t do anything for the next couple of weeks.”  She said she has laryngitis.  Her partner blurted out, “She’s going for an operation to get her gall bladder yanked out.”  Ms. Laryngitis exclaimed in a normal tone, “I would’ve told her if I wanted her to know.”  “Well she’s getting her gall bladder out,” the other said.  Wow, I thought… Not even a reaction to the Vagina Monologues.  Oh well, I’m probably zoned in on a thought while others are in their own worlds.  Perfectly normal.  This is life.

What I’ve learned from that exchange is that I had made a very embarrassing assumption that I was unaware I had been holding within.  What I’m about to expose is a shocking revelation to me.  I was nonchalantly thinking that lesbians are feminists.  Conversely I ask myself consciously do I believe that feminists are lesbians?  This is not logical.  Men can be feminists too.  In “The Heroine’s Journey”, Murdoch explains that the words feminine and masculine are not gender specific.  They are qualities innate in both genders.  I knew that but I was not conscious of it.

“The only way a woman can heal this imbalance within herself is to bring the light of consciousness into the darkness.  She must be willing to face and name her shadow tyrant and let it go.  This requires a conscious sacrifice of mindless attachments to ego power, financial gain and hypnotic, passive living.  It takes courage, compassion, humility and time.  The challenge of the heroine is not one of conquest but one of acceptance, of accepting her nameless, unloved parts that have become tyrannical because she has left them unchecked.  We can’t go through life blindly.  We have to examine all of the conflicting part of ourselves… The challenge according to Edward Whitmont, requires “the strength to sustain awareness and teh suffering of conflict and to be able to surrender oneself to it.”  It is the job of the heroine to enlighten the world by loving it – starting with herself.” – Excerpt from “The Heroine’s Journey” by Maureen Murdoch.

I seriously laugh at myself for my square thinking, sometimes.  (I mean I hope my square mentality is a rare occurrence, and I welcome any opportunity to blast it away.)  I am shedding old skin that is being singed as its exposed to white heat.  Some of that “Roman Empire” mentality had absorbed through a layer of skin and I wore it, like a floating film on the surface of a water that made my view of the world murky.

After the show I asked one of the actors how being part of the Vagina Monologues had affected her.  I said, “It is more than just acting a part in a play.  It’s participating in a movement.”  She paused and her face lit up, “yeah, it’s really surprised me how it’s transformed me as an artist.”  She explained that she is more active in promoting awareness of the violence against women on her Facebook account.

I was drawn to Eve Ensler’s work ever since I was exposed to the healing work she began and continues to grow in the DRC.  She started the “City of Joy” in Bocavu, DRC.    It is a shelter for the women victimized by rape and violence.

This is from the website of VDAY.

V-Day is a global movement to end violence against women and girls that raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of Playwright/Founder Eve Ensler’s award winning play The Vagina Monologues. In 2007, more than 3000 V-Day events took place in the U.S. and around the world. To date, the V-Day movement has raised over $80 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it, crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns, launched the Karama program in the Middle East, reopened shelters, and funded over 5000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq. The ‘V’ in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina. http://www.vday.org

I felt wounded when I watched monologue about a woman who was the vessel of the “dirty semen” of the rapists while her husband and children were forced to watch.  She said, “kill me first”, rather than forcing THAT upon us.  I can’t help but participate in some small way to the cause of helping to restore self-esteem and dignity for the women of the DRC by sharing what’s going on there through this blog.  It really is a natural outflow of reading “The Heroine’s Journey”.  It is not a coincidence that I happen to meet someone who told me about “The Vagina Monologues” playing at a theater in LA.  I purposely went and invited other friends to join me.

The closing of the monologues goes something like this:  The vagina is like the heart.  It can heal.  It can accept.  It can endure.  It can open and it can close.  It is like the earth that gives birth, nourishment and it recycles through death and life.

Thank you for reading.

Analyn Revilla

(The Vagina Monologues will be playing another show on Saturday, March 24th, 2012 at the Lyric Hyperion Theater & Cafe.  8pm showing.)

When I lived inVancouverI took a semester on autobiographical writing in 2004. One advice that stuck with me from the teacher was the importance of the writer taking care of their body in the process of digging up the bones of the past. I particularly like the word exhume because of the origin of “hume” coming from humus or earth. Our bodies are like the earth that stores everything. When a writer exhumes the buried memories of the past there is a literal tearing up of the grounds that we stand on.

There are elements of exhuming the past when writing about fiction also. Though a story may not be specifically about me, it is about someone else who is going through or has experienced the elements of the story. The phrase “our biography is our biology” is something I read in a book by Caroline Myss. It was only last year I read her book “Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can”; and it has been over 8 years ago that I took that course on autobiographical writing. There is a truth that both teacher and healer are connected to: We are a sum of all the smaller parts ~ like the calculus course I took in university of integration and derivation.  The findings of both metaphysics and the hard sciences mathematics and physics/biology/chemistry and their offshoots are beginning to converge.  Each generation of scientist and mathematicians are creating better and more sophisticated tools to measure the universe.  We are the sum of the physical, the mental and spiritual composites.

The advice to take care of my body when exhuming the past hit me hard and fast yesterday while I was at work. I had to excuse myself early because I felt ill. My body had slowed down to almost a faint heartbeat, figuratively speaking. I wanted to throw up. I couldn’t eat. My bowels were sluggish. I’m generally a fit and healthy person, and so the state I was in scared me a little. I went home and slept for hours hoping my nerves would calm down. In a relaxed state then maybe my internal systems will start to function normally.

What created this state of chaotic deadness? Well it was a series of events that began with reading “The Heroine’s Journey” by Murdoch. (I don’t want to do the book injustice by summing its message into one or two sentences because it contains so much wisdom.) I was taking a journey with the heroine in my play “Original Sin”, without separating the me from the we. I had dreams of diving into the water and my legs entangled in the snake like arms of giant kelps; I was drawn to stories in the news of women enduring assaults, particularly those exposed by Eve Ensler in the Democratic Republic of Congo.   (See the end of the blog for excerpt of short interviews with 7 victims of rape in DRC in 2008.)

The introduction of the book describes an interview Murdock had with mythologist, Joseph Campbell.

My desire to understand how the woman’s journey relates to the journey of the hero first led me talk with Joseph Campbell in 1981.  I knew that the stages of the heroine’s journey incorporated aspects of the journey of the hero, but I felt that the focus of female spiritual development was to heal the internal split between woman and her feminine nature… I was surprised when he responded that women don’t need to make the journey. “In the whole mythological tradition the woman is there. All she has to do is to realize that she’s the place that people are trying to get to. When a woman realizes what her wonderful character is, she not going to get messed up wit the notion of being pseudo-male.” – Excerpt from “The Heroine’s Journey” by Maureen Murdock

In each chapter of the book Murdock describes in detail the experience of the cycles of the heroine’s journey. In doing my research for the play I think I was in the phase of “Initiation and Descent to the Goddess”.

 Reproduced from the book “The Heroine’s Journey” by Maureen Murdock

The characteristics of this phase involves heaviness like moving through mud with boots that are loose at the ankles. It’s like diving to the bottom of the ocean to retrieve a lost treasure. The deeper we go the more pressure weighs down upon us. As explained by Murdock, most people find it hard to sustain bearing the weight, and the instinct is to resurface. Without the guidance of someone who’s been there before then the novice treasure hunter will quit, perhaps to never return to that place; and never to heal the rift between the self and the feminine.

A woman moves down into the depths to reclaim the parts of herself that split off when she rejected the mother and shattered mirror of the feminine. To make the journey a woman puts aside her fascination with the intellect and games of the cultural mind, and acquaints herself, perhaps for the first time with her body, her emotions, her sexuality, her intuition, her images, her values and her mind. This is what we find in the depths. – Excerpt from “The Heroine’s Journey” by Maureen Murdock

The premise of “Original Sin” is broadly defined to be the separation from the self that is created by the indoctrination of the man-made organizations and hierarchy in a world that is mostly ordered by patriarchy. If we agree with Joseph Campbell that the woman’s mythic journey is not a journey but “the place that people are trying to get to” then I’m feeling more confident that I can find a story that will resonate truth in both men and women.

The healer, the teacher, the playwright and the artist are crying out to respect the feminine that live in all of us.  There is a call to respect mother nature because the womb of the earth and our mothers are our sources of physical origin.  When we separate from the feminine then we lose respect for our origin thus creating a separation from the self and from others and the outcome is a rape of the land and violence towards each other.  In exhuming our past with wisdom then we have the hope of healing and breaking down walls that separate.  Desmond Tutu used the word ubuntu to describe the unity of human kind.  It translates to “me-we”.

-Analyn Revilla

Excerpt of interviews from Democracy Now!  with survivors of sexual violence in the DRC.

In 2008, V-Day worked with UNICEF to organize events in the DRC, where survivors of sexual violence publicly spoke out against violence and about their experiences for the first time. Seven women told their stories in front of community members and government and U.N. officials.

SURVIVOR 1: [translated] When they took my husband and hit him and tied him and tortured him and took him I don’t know where, they went and killed him wherever they had taken him. And then all seven men raped me. Then the neighbors heard what happened and found me unconscious. They looked at me and saw all my insides outside of my body.

SURVIVOR 2: [translated] They started taking the clothes off my children, and I told them, “Please, excuse me, you can’t do that. Instead of raping my children while I watch, just kill me first.”

SURVIVOR 3: [translated] A woman is supposed to be respected. We are not objects. Women get pregnant and breast-feed you. How come you disrespect me today in public?

SURVIVOR 4: [translated] The authorities of this country, how do you look at this rape issue and remain silent?

SURVIVOR 1: [translated] We are suffering because of rape. Rape should stop. It must stop.

SURVIVOR 5: [translated] I am speaking so that women who are hiding and others who have AIDS can come out, so they can be taught how to live.

How do artists face set backs?  By creating, using their imagination and desire to create.  I think that’s the nature of an artist anyhow regardless of whether or not the she is sailing a calm sea with the sails full and the prow pointing closer and closer to her destination; or ferocious winds and choppy waves threaten to sink her ship of dreams – the artist will prevail until she has exhausted all possibilities . 

 A film maker,  I know, is working on his third short film.  It is his biggest project to date and he has poured all of his energy and talent into realizing his dream.   I helped out on the first day of filming, and I recognized the auspiciousness of the event, because he had shared with me the setbacks he had faced on his ongoing journey.  He was financing the whole thing, and there had been multiple delays and each one was adding more cost to the production.

The first setback was a fraud by a contractor he hired to build the set.  Dave paid a down payment with a check.  A few days before the beginning of the  first day of shooting the man called Dave and asked for another check.  He explained that the first check Dave wrote was post dated, neither men  had not noticed the mistake.  Dave gave the man another check, unaware that the first check had already been deposited and the bank had cleared it – despite the post date.   The contractor was now paid in full, but a set had not yet been built.  With the close proximity of the first day of the shoot, Dave had to cancel everything, and file a small claims court to get his money back. 

 A week later Dave told me he had reworked his plan.  He got a loan from the bank, found a new location, a new crew to build the set, created a new schedule.  He looked hopeful and happy; and I was excited for him.  I got in touch with his producer to find out how I can chip in with the purpose of learning and contributing to the process.  My first contribution was to bring coffee for the crew of 16 people.  Friday night, at the figurative “11th hour” there was a phone call from the main lead actor, the night before the first day of the shoot.  The lead actor told Dave that he’s pulling out of the movie, because he got a better offer for a bigger part for another opportunity.  What makes it more bizarre is he called at 11 o’clock at night so it was literally the “11th hour”.  Do people really do  that? I wondered, then upon further thought I decided that this sort of thing DOES happen.   People have been stood up at the altar while guests and family  wonder when the ceremony is going to start.

 I told Dave that it seems when we’re on the right path the gods have this funny way of testing us to see if he was  worthy of the hero’s journey.   They had thrown obstacles in his way to test his will, his resourcefulness, his faith.  Whether or not those words helped him pick himself up and step further into unknown, and probably treacherous territory. 

 Within days another actor was hired; further adjustments were made to the schedule, and finally, yes finally we were on the set.  It was well designed for the film noir genre set in the 40’s.  The space is a renovated warehouse in the San Pedro district.  The makeup artist and the costume designer had set up a make shift office in one of the restrooms.  The other restroom had to be shared by both men and women.  We didn’t care.  We were happy to just be present and to play and create.  Everyone was chipping in to make it happen.  I discovered I have the mechanical skill to adjust the chain links of an old fashioned wristwatch.  “Technical” and “mechanical” tasks had always daunted me, because I’m like a bull in a china shop when it comes to those things but I was fearless this time.  I tacked the task and was able to fit the fake gold watch on the leading actor’s fine-boned wrist.

 The set was ready, the makeup was flawless and the hair was coiffed.  The actors were taped up with the mikes and then Dave let everyone know that he doesn’t use the word “action”.  He doesn’t like the word, because… he never did explain; but just said he’ll say ‘go’. 

 ‘Go’ it went.  After a few rehearsals the camera rolled.  I observed Dave’s style as he communicated clearly without hesitation the what and the how of the scenes to everyone.  It was as if he had played the situation in his head a million times over and he can detect the minute differences between his vision and what he saw played out.  He made adjustments quickly then moved on.   

Later in the evening I got home from a walk with the dog; there was a voicemail from Dave.  He said, ‘don’t know if you heard, but we got shut down today.  The production has been stopped because the Fire Marshal said the building is not up to code.”  Questions fired in my head, but I held them in check as I listened to Dave lament the situation.  How can he go on?   What more can be thrown into this pyre of drama?  While he talked I wondered what consolation can I offer Dave and to encourage him to go on.  Even I was at a loss, and dumbfounded with his news. 

Though he was willing to buy the fire permit (a cost of $700) it would be moot, because the building is on a fire watch.  The other alternative to continue filming in the same location is to pay the city $65 per hour to have a Fire Marshall present during the entire production.  He couldn’t afford it.

 I could only advice him not to make any decisions without giving himself a chance to rest.  Sleep on it I told him.  We drew out the conversation between regaling the previous setbacks and this new one.  As we hashed out the events I began to hear him speak of new ideas, though woven in and out of the hope were some voices of doubt, fear and fatigue.  Before we hung up he had spoken powerful words:  “I know I can do this.”  “There were some amazing footages I can use.”  “Did you see the amazing footages?”  “It’s a great feeling to see everyone pour themselves into this.”   I know that those words has been planted in his subconscious which will help him go on. 

His journey in itself is the worthy of a good drama full of surreal images like a strange dream.  Where did all these people come from and what does it mean?  Who invited these ghosts, monsters, angels and fairies?  The gods have a way of insinuating a fuller drama into the situation by putting the hero into more peril than he had ever imagined.  It’s perhaps their way of bringing out the best creation from the artist.

The ICWP list posted this. Many of you may have seen the 2009 Marsha Norman essay:

http://www.tcg.org/publications/at/nov09/women.cfm

But it’s worth looking at again.

And if anybody is working on a rewrite, check out Paul Simon’s new tune REWRITE. It will keep you going.

I have a problem with one of my plays. I keep submitting The Last Of The Daytons to contests and theaters. I’ve been doing it for a long time. It has been an ATHE finalist, a semi-finalist at the O’Neill and Ashland. It has had many nibbles but no bites. Recently, Luna Stage asked to see a rewrite but then rejected it.

Because I love the play, I’ve always thought that I just haven’t found the right place for it yet. I know the story. I know the characters. I know how they talk and feel. I’ve been with them now for years and have seen them change and grow with each draft. The draft I send out now must be the sixth or seventh. Or eighth.

I thought for a while that the nature of the characters was the problem. The people could be considered out of the ordinary but many of us are out of the ordinary. I think it was John Steinbeck who, when told that his characters were too eccentric to be real, said that the disbelievers had probably not taken the time to get to know their neighbors.

(This an aside but one hard to resist. Stephen King, in his excellent book, On Writing, talks about a man he worked for who had two hooks for hands. He would put one hook in cold water and one in hot, then clamp them on someone’s neck.)

I recently received a thoughtful critique from readers at the Women’s Work Festival at White Rooster Productions in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, which they gave me permission to quote.

They didn’t have a problem with the characters.

“I like the characters in this play, they are very normal in their abnormality (talking to invisible friends, escaping from hospitals in their pajamas, etc) and that works well.”

What did disturb them was the tone. “I started out reading it as a comedy (perhaps not what you were going for?) but the climax turned violent.” It read like two plays that aren’t melding comfortably together and they thought that I should think about the tone. “Perhaps addressing the tone in the beginning and aiming towards the darker shades would be beneficial.”

Could the tone have been the problem for other readers as well?

The Co-Artistic Director, Ruth Lawrence, who is also playwright, suggested that the tone is important to tackle because “tone isn’t something you can explain to your readers. It is there on the page, not in your intentions. Especially to cold readers.”

I’m wondering how to do address this. I’ve done three staged readings and think, having seen them, that the tone remains consistent and that the end of the play is prepared for in the first two scenes – a search for a father who is never talked about and a dark note about a death in the Gulf War.

I’ll reread the play again carefully. But if I still think that the tone is consistent and the plot clear, what do I do when I send it out again? Do I add a note? A prologue? Should I keep sending it out? I have a DVD that I have offered to send along with submissions but so far, nobody has asked to see it. As a reader myself, I know that it takes time and effort to give the submissions the consideration they deserve and a DVD may just too much. (I’ll also have another look at the DVD myself.)

I’m very grateful to the White Rooster for giving me some insight into why The Last of the Daytons has always been a bridesmaid and never a bride.  If anybody out there has any ideas or has struggled with this problem, I would love to hear from them.

I would like to see this play off on a honeymoon.

I had dreams.

Even though I’d read all the articles that assured me that creating something is a reward in itself, even though I knew I should bask in the glory of bringing life to the blank page, even though I’d been told over and over that looking at the finished work and finding it good is all a writer needs to be fulfilled, even though that Satisfaction is The Pinnacle; I was not convinced.

My heart beat with the hope that the finished work would bring joy to more than me. All the hours I’d sat in front of the computer would touch the lives of others. My play would be produced. Yes!  It would be produced in a big theater with lavish sets and costumes, brought to life by a director whose profound understanding of the work had been communicated to protean actors who every night and at matinees would speak my speech trippingly on the tongue. There would be huzzahs!

I would be in the theatre.

Now, I would just like to get to the theater.

I work until 6:30 pm and live in the Westside. Do you think I can get to a theatre in Noho on a weekend evening? One night a few Fridays ago, I tried to get to Peace In Our Time at the Antaeus Theatre.

My husband and I hopped into the car at 6:35 and looked at the 10 East on the computer. It was  solid red. We decided to take Sunset Boulevard and zipped along until we reached Kenter Blvd. Then we stopped. At 7:45, we hadn’t reached the 405 and sat, not moving, listening to KPCC. Our GPS (a girl named Olive who is very knowledgeable but who has trouble pronouncing street names) repeated that we were on the fastest route but wouldn’t get to theater until 9:05.

Finally, we called the Box Office, cancelled our tickets and turned (not an easy thing to do) for home.

The next week, a friend said that he had comp tickets for As I Like It at the Macha in West Hollywood. Could I join him? It was a Thursday evening. Surely, I could get to King’s Road in an hour and a half. At 8:35, I arrived. The door to the theater was locked. I banged on it (discreetly but persistently) and a very nice person showed me the door to the balcony. It was a short play and I was back down in the lobby not long after a found a seat.

At Theatre Palisades, the pre show talk in the lobby is not about the drumbeat for war, the fifty million without health insurance, the Lakers.  Magic words are whispered – La Brea, Topanga Canyon, the McClure tunnel. People sink exhausted onto the lobby benches, murmuring, “There were three accidents on the 10.” “I had to detour at Sepulveda.” “I’ll never do this again.”

Actors call. “There’s been a fender bender at Vermont. Please tell the stage manager.”

On summer Sunday matinees, we provide the customers coming up from Long Beach with cold compresses and Aleve.

I really shouldn’t complain. There are lots of good theaters on the Westside – Theatricum Botanicum, The Odyssey, the Edgemar, the Pico Playhouse, The Garage, the Morgan-Wixson, the Ruskin. This Friday, I saw A.R. Gurney’s The Dining Room at the 3rd Street Promenade Theatre in Santa Monica and it was great fun, beautifully directed and acted and full of good surprises.

Truly, I don’t know why I’m ranting. I could stop eating for a couple of weeks and buy a ticket to Beth Henley’s new play at the Geffen. (But that’s another blog.)