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ejreadswords 's review for:
Stupid Fucking Bird
by Aaron Posner
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“To love with all your heart and know that it will never, ever be returned. And to be loved by someone else whose love you cannot possibly return, even if he were the last man standing. What kind of a God needs a laugh that bad?”
Today's the day. Day one of the 2-year professional conservatory at Stella Adler, where I will be a student, continuing to develop, to train, to hone the craft! To grow as a person. To better understand art. To better understand the world around me.
“But this need to create is… absurd, really. I mean… why? Aren’t there enough things already? Do we really need more? And yet on we go. More books. More plays. More painful poetry poured out in the small hours. And the songs! My God, the songs alone…! Sometimes I think there should be a moratorium on the creation of Art for 100 years. Let’s just take a good look at everything we already have and then maybe decide what else we might need.”
I auditioned for the conservatory with a monologue from Con in this play. I hadn't read the play before, just found it in a book of monologues for young men aged 18-29 (kinda crazy I'm almost outside of that range, eep).
"Why do I want to change the world? BECAUSE IT NEEDS CHANGING! And once upon a time, somewhere, maybe in Eastern Europe, or at least the Eastern Europe of my imagination -- the theater -- was something that could maybe be some tiny, tiny, tiny part of that. And it has got to find its way back to that again. Or it should just go the way of the dodo, and the bellbottom, and the newspaper... and just go away."
Regardless. Tonight I will be performing it one more time (I mean, I'd love to perform it again, because having now read the entire play, Con is such a good role! Either Con or Dev would be tremendous). I figured I needed to read the play, to best understand the character, give the purest performance possible.
And wow. This is just wonderful. At its core, it's just about love and art; and why we love, why are we so crazy to love; and why we make art, why we consume art, why we need art. It's messy, it's raw, it's meta, it's funny, it's heartbreaking. It's life itself. It's enlightening, it's enchanting, and it's stupid. It thinks so highly and so poorly of itself. But Aaron Posner's play is something new. And I feel better having had read it. And here I am logging it on Goodreads. The play gets so meta in saying that the audience will be looking at their phone even before they finish exiting their row. Just to get back to "real-life." How moved actually were you by this? Is Stupid Fucking Bird actually saying something? Or is it just pseudo-intellectual bullshit?
I'm choosing to attach importance to this play forever because it was "my monologue," so to speak. I found it in a random PDF of monologues online, chose it, workshopped it with my voice & speech teacher Celeste, performed it in front of some friends, auditioned in front of Tom & Luis with it, did it again for my callback (this time, filmed) and now tonight. And bringing it back to Stella Adler herself, and having read her book on the Technique of Acting recently, a role like Con is scary for me, but one I'm excited to dive more into. It's giving me permission to swing, to go balls to the wall, to fucking go wild. Because what else are we here for. It's vital and it speaks to the human condition. Con says the quiet parts out loud.
Now I should read Chekhov's The Seagull, but Stupid Fucking Bird is such a wonderful, funny, inspiring entry-point into the legendary Russian text. I love these flawed, fucked-up people.
“You’re all so fucked up in such endlessly fascinating ways that I can’t help but love you. And if you love someone you want to know them, get them, get inside them… so to speak.”
Today's the day. Day one of the 2-year professional conservatory at Stella Adler, where I will be a student, continuing to develop, to train, to hone the craft! To grow as a person. To better understand art. To better understand the world around me.
“But this need to create is… absurd, really. I mean… why? Aren’t there enough things already? Do we really need more? And yet on we go. More books. More plays. More painful poetry poured out in the small hours. And the songs! My God, the songs alone…! Sometimes I think there should be a moratorium on the creation of Art for 100 years. Let’s just take a good look at everything we already have and then maybe decide what else we might need.”
I auditioned for the conservatory with a monologue from Con in this play. I hadn't read the play before, just found it in a book of monologues for young men aged 18-29 (kinda crazy I'm almost outside of that range, eep).
"Why do I want to change the world? BECAUSE IT NEEDS CHANGING! And once upon a time, somewhere, maybe in Eastern Europe, or at least the Eastern Europe of my imagination -- the theater -- was something that could maybe be some tiny, tiny, tiny part of that. And it has got to find its way back to that again. Or it should just go the way of the dodo, and the bellbottom, and the newspaper... and just go away."
Regardless. Tonight I will be performing it one more time (I mean, I'd love to perform it again, because having now read the entire play, Con is such a good role! Either Con or Dev would be tremendous). I figured I needed to read the play, to best understand the character, give the purest performance possible.
And wow. This is just wonderful. At its core, it's just about love and art; and why we love, why are we so crazy to love; and why we make art, why we consume art, why we need art. It's messy, it's raw, it's meta, it's funny, it's heartbreaking. It's life itself. It's enlightening, it's enchanting, and it's stupid. It thinks so highly and so poorly of itself. But Aaron Posner's play is something new. And I feel better having had read it. And here I am logging it on Goodreads. The play gets so meta in saying that the audience will be looking at their phone even before they finish exiting their row. Just to get back to "real-life." How moved actually were you by this? Is Stupid Fucking Bird actually saying something? Or is it just pseudo-intellectual bullshit?
I'm choosing to attach importance to this play forever because it was "my monologue," so to speak. I found it in a random PDF of monologues online, chose it, workshopped it with my voice & speech teacher Celeste, performed it in front of some friends, auditioned in front of Tom & Luis with it, did it again for my callback (this time, filmed) and now tonight. And bringing it back to Stella Adler herself, and having read her book on the Technique of Acting recently, a role like Con is scary for me, but one I'm excited to dive more into. It's giving me permission to swing, to go balls to the wall, to fucking go wild. Because what else are we here for. It's vital and it speaks to the human condition. Con says the quiet parts out loud.
Now I should read Chekhov's The Seagull, but Stupid Fucking Bird is such a wonderful, funny, inspiring entry-point into the legendary Russian text. I love these flawed, fucked-up people.
“You’re all so fucked up in such endlessly fascinating ways that I can’t help but love you. And if you love someone you want to know them, get them, get inside them… so to speak.”