One Acts and Movies

Yesterday afternoon, Plot and Duck went to the Eureka Theater to see Program One of the Bay One Act Festival (See Review Here). It was entertaining, in that pure, practically unproduced, almost giddy way of seeing a show when it's brand new.

Afterwards, one of the playwrights, who happens to be a young man The Great BZWZ's age (with whom she went to high school), told the Plotniks an interesting thing. He saw the play yesterday with one of the two leads stronger than the other, and in New York he saw the play with the other of the two leads stronger. Which is to say: the female actor of the stage couple was stronger once and the male actor of the stage couple was stronger the other time. To the playwright, these two performances were like two separate plays, with completely different points of view, even though all the actors spoke the same lines.

The Great Plotnik has seen this over and again, and not only on the stage. A great singer can make a banal song seem pretty damned wonderful. And vice-versa. Which brings us to the Oscars.

Last night's Academy Awards was interesting, and Plotnik only had to leave the room for three of the five nominated Best Songs. The one he liked best actually won, though the hole-in-the-guitar poor-poor-me effect was a bit much. The other songs only lacked Minnie Mouse break-dancing with Goofy to make them into complete circuses.

Yes, it's true. Plotnik hates Alan Mencken...and every song that has come from every Disney movie since Jiminy Cricket sang "When You Wish Upon A Star."



And as for films: CurPlotnikMudgeon usually also hates the films that win Best Picture, so he probably won't bother with There Will Be Blood. La Vie en Rose really is a fabulous movie, though, and Plot and Duck were rooting for Marion Cotillard.