Wednesday, December 05, 2012

The constant reinvention of the wheel

Today's Washington Post goes gaga over a play in town that is performed ... in a BAR! Not in a theater but a bar! Hoop de doo!

It's been almost a quarter century since I wrote, directed and produced Cocktail Suite, three interlocking and simultaneous plays (hyperdrama) performed in a bar. And we were far from the first to be so adventurous.

THREE TIMES THE THEATER < CHARLES DEEMER TAKES THE BITTER WITH THE SUITE IN A PORTLAND< BARROOM
Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
October 9, 1988
Author: BOB HICKS - of the Oregonian Staff
Estimated printed pages: 5

OK, so Saturday nights can get pretty hot and heavy at a neighborhood bar. But at Petticoat Junction, it seems like the roof is ready to blow off.
Whoa. What was in that last beer?
In one corner a fast-talking old drunk is being chewed out loudly by his frustrated son, who's spent weeks tracking him down. A few tables away a moralistic former convict is doing a slow seethe as his smarmy roommate spouts cynical garbage about women.
Across the way a boozy husband and wife -- in the last stages of splitsville -- are airing their intimate and embarrassing dirty laundry for everyone within earshot: Seems they're both haunted by the ghost of a genius physicist who slept with one and wanted to sleep with the other.
And perched happily on a stool, taking it all in, is a broadly smiling Charles Deemer.
Read full story 
Ah, youth! (Theirs, not mine ha ha).

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