I watch a lot of television for someone who doesn’t watch television but only watches television series as standalone programs which totally doesn’t count as watching television because you’re skipping all the other nonsense that makes up the television experience.

Hopefully—and probably—more than half of the new shows will be off my list by October; heck, some will be scrapped right after their pilots have been aired. Why is it that television pilots are always so disappointing? Oh, well, I’ll have enough returning series to fall back on, though some are currently on probation (well, only Parenthood is; Peter Krause be damned). … H’m. This is one hell of an incoherent article opening.

Let’s just move on. To the list! Read More »

Great show, though the stage design could've been better. (Vorhang auf by Kersten A. Riechers)

I cannot wait till my big debut. It’s still months away, but when rehearsals start in September, shoot me right there and then and I’ll go straight to gay theatre heaven. … Wait. What?

The last couple of weeks the question, “What’s your play about?” came up about a million times. It’s not an odd question, and I guess it is a legitimised one to ask when one wants to know more about a stage play.

However, I have this rule in life: Never ask me to explain something to you. (Well, it’s not exactly a rule. More a safety precaution.)

I am awful at explaining things. In high school, when I had to explain an episode of [insert random television series for women here] because someone had missed it, my explanations would turn into incoherent ramblings of essay-length. Ask me about my childhood, and I will make your head explode by illogical sentence structures, non-chronological narration, sentences that suddenly end, and phenomena that are left unexplained, even though they form the essence of the story.

So, asking me to explain Heaven forfend! is quite pointless. And not only because of my lack of explanation-skills, but also because it isn’t exactly a play that’s easy to characterise in a few words or sentences. Read More »

Ever wondered, “Hey, that insaneness that is Remy, I would love to see that in play form?” No? … Please go away then. Yes? Well, thankfully your wish came true!

Why shouldn't you seduce the Almighty?

Starting September, 2010, the production of Heaven forfend!, my first stage play, will commence. Read More »

Originally published for a nineteenth-century British literature course. Ignore the madness.

I hate it when technology turns on you. This is just like the time my phone accidentally sent a text message containing a spicy secret to the gossip queen of my high school, which resulted in World Wars Episode III Electric Boogaloo: The Fight’s Back On, in theatres near you, next summer. Of course, it is not exactly the same as my phone wasn’t really capable of sending said text without being instructed to do so, but let’s just skip that fact, all right?

Two hours ago, I had written a whole piece about Dorian Gray and The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus; it was hilarious, it was insightful, it was Pulitzer Prize- and Nobel Prize-worthy, to be honest. However, Pauw & Witteman—I cannot stand Pauw with his smug questions, but that’s an aside—well, obviously it is, otherwise I wouldn’t be using em dashes, but, anyway—started broadcasting at eleven, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali was on tonight, so I just had to watch—did anyone see yesterday’s episode with Komrij? Snappish! He would have been a great addition to the spicy conflict-starter group I belonged to in high school. Read More »

“And what’s with the ‘big guy’? Is it because I’m fat?”
— Jake

Yes, it is, Alec Baldwin, but your awesome personality balances it out, so don’t worry. What is unbalanceable, though, is It’s Complicated‘s screenplay. The film feels like it is trying to be two separate things: on one hand Nancy Meyers is trying to tell us something (meaningful) about divorce and life-after, and on the other, she’s ridiculing everything she stands for by making everything into a joke. I have no problem with a romcom (or a dramatic comedy), but I do have a problem with a film that cannot look at itself without snickering at its own badness.

Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin, and several other supporting actors are great in it, don’t get me wrong—but there’s a significant difference between being great because the screenplay challenges you to do something extraordinary, and looking great because everything around you is sucky-to-the-max. A lot is not explained, and I guess Meyers, in her films, in general doesn’t explain a lot about backgrounds, but I would like an explanation for once why Meyers’s characters always seem to be making mistakes alien to real life.

• It’s Complicated

I don’t want to waste too much text on It’s Very Easy: Just Have a Real Conversation for Once, so, let’s continue. Read More »