I've been unbelievably busy for the past few weeks. Since Thanksgiving, it feels like I've done nothing but run from one thing to another. I've seen some theatre. I've purchased some Christmas presents. Tim and I are preparing to head out of town tomorrow for Christmas.

I'm going to get back to writing ASAP. But not today.

Show #2 was almost totally irredeemable. It was poorly written, poorly produced, and (for the most part) poorly acted. It was aimed straight at the LGBT audience, but, if the play itself is going to be this awful, there needs to be a lot more skin on display than the show currently offers. There were a couple of decent performances amid the wreakage, but it wasn't enough to salvage a boring, unfunny, predictable comedy that just didn't make a damn bit of sense.

So it was a bit of a lost weekend, theatre-wise, but the upside is that the tickets were free. :)

For the record, both Craig and Jackman have extensive stage experience, Craig in London's West End and Jackman here in New York, in London and in his native Australia. These are not newcomers to the stage.

I'd heard a lot of negative buzz on this play with people saying (in a nutshell) that it was a boring, unrelenting evening of monologues and that the stars' shaky Chicago accents defeated any attempts at their playing these characters.

Well, I call bullshit. I loved it. I was riveted and thought these guys were terrific, better than I've ever seen them in movies. If there's any justice, both will be nominated for that Tony in the spring and one of them (I don't care which) will win.

Craig and Jackman are two Chicago beat cops and lifelong best friends who narrate to us (and each other) what happened during the worst episode in their careers/lives. Craig is Joey, the slightly more evolved partner, a recently recovering alcoholic with no life outside the job and his partner's family. Jackman is Denny, an unrepentant vulgarian, who says his whole life revolves around his family and that he'll do anything for them. To say that things devolve from there is to put it lightly.

Craig and Jackman have apparently gotten their Chicago accents down pat. I heard no problems there. And, in fact, after the first 30 seconds, I forgot that I was watching two international film stars and really got caught up in the characters and their complex relationship.

I absolutely recommend checking this out if you can snag a ticket. It's a reminder that no matter how big the franchise, some of our biggest tentpole stars are also actors, capable of so much more than their familiar characters.

After the play, Craig and Jackman spoke to the audience from the stage on behalf of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS asking the audience to donate money and buy signed posters and other memorabilia. And then...they proceeded to auction off their undershirts for charity...yes, the ones they were actually wearing under their costumes for the performance. And, no, they did not remove them on stage.

The bidding started at $1000 and quickly escaladed and ended up over $5000. Wow. Who are these people who come to the theatre and can spend thousands of dollars on the spur of the moment? Must be nice.

It was also strange hearing Jackman and Craig speak in their native Australian and English accents after 90 minutes of hearing them speak in flat Midwestern tones.

Anyway, it was a fun evening and I'm so glad that I went.

I thought twice about the standing room when I heard that the running time of the show was 3 hours and 15 minutes. Yikes! But I've stood for The Iceman Cometh (the one that starred Kevin Spacey, et al...that was longer) and The King and I (when Marie Osmond was in it...that was slightly shorter), so I figured I could take the heat.

And I was so glad I did, because this was just wonderful. Law is a remarkable Hamlet, not so much melancholy Dane, as Dane seriously pissed off, with a sardonic sense of humor and a way with a witty quip. I've never seen a production of this play with quite so many laughs. It almost played like the blackest of black comedy.

Law's approach worked beautifully in his scenes with Ophelia, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, where you get the sense that Hamlet did love Ophelia at some point (or thought he did), but that he's setting all that aside in the name of larger issues and everything he says and does to her in the course of the play is to try to get her out of the way so she doesn't end up as collateral damage in the bloodbath that he suspects will come. And when his efforts result in exactly the opposite of what he intended, this Hamlet is finally left unable to make a joke.

Where Law's approach doesn't quite hold up is in the famous soliloquys, where the character really is descending into depression/pathos/melancholy/whatever and those very serious moments seem at odds with what we've seen before. I kept waiting for the punchline or the raised eyebrow. But during the famous "To Be or Not To Be" speech there was nary a fisheye to be had. And, while that was appropriate, it seemed like a shift in tone, even if one dictated by the text.

This was a modern dress production and, with few exceptions, the cast was garbed in black throughout. This really underscored the universality of the play and I kept expecting these characters to pull out their blackberries and cell phones to communicate with each other. It all just seemed so right.

The whole cast was terrific. I'd write in praise of them all, but then I'd be writing all night.

This is truely a superlative Hamlet, well thought out from the get go, and absolutely worth seeing, even standing through. It's as good as you've heard and you should definitely go if you can.

What a great night!

Sebastian and Victor are keeping me company, but they miss their other daddy too. Before Tim left, he had a shower and left his towel on the bed. They have taken to sleeping on his towel, either taking turns or crowding on together.

It's weird to me that I was on my own for so long and had no trouble keeping myself together, but now I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels for a few weeks till Tim returns.

No idea what that means.

So who wants to invite me out somewhere in the meantime? :)

This one takes place in a Chicago neighborhood donut shop doing marginal business. The place is favorite amongst some of the area's denizens, including a pair of beat cops and a local homeless woman, but the homemade donut recipes and local flavor just can't seem to compete with the new Starbucks on the corner.

I really wanted to like this play, and I did. Well, I suppose what I should really say is that I wanted to LOVE it, and didn't. I liked it. It was a pleasant diversion, a middling drama, but nothing major. Not like the last one.

The characters are likable in a sitcom pilot sort of way, especially the donut shop proprietor, played by Michael McKean, his new employee, played by Jon Michael Hill, and the local cops, played by Kate Buddeke and James Vincent Meredith. I was totally grooving on the laid back vibe and easy comedy here, until late in the proceedings when everything takes a turn for the dramatic. And then McKean's character does something that had both of us scratching our heads. It was one of those "Huh...but...but...but..." sort of moments where you're just trying to figure what the playwright is trying to say and not having a damn bit of luck.

Anyhow, I found this one to be a bit of a mixed bag. Not bad, but when compared to some other things we've seen lately, and the out-sized love I had for the writer's last play, it was all just a bit disappointing.

I love this play. A community theatre production years was the first non-school related bit of theatre I ever did...I was the props guy and the stage crew. I had remembered it as a rollicking comedy with deeper intentions than most of Simon's other work and a hint of darkness (that would come to fuller fruition later in the third part of the trilogy).

And I was wrong. Or perhaps I'd misremembered. This production, directed by David Cromer, makes a serious case for this play as a kitchen sink family drama with a light-hearted, nostalgic side. The moments where Eugene, the Neil Simon alter ego, breaks the fourth wall to comment on and make jokes about the action to the audience almost feel out of place and unnecessary.

Laurie Metcalf, whom you will remember as Jackie on the long-running sitcom Roseanne, does amazing work here as the family matriarch trying to hold things together for another day. She manages to be similtaneously low-key and riveting and there is never any doubt as to who is in charge here. There was one scene where she pulls out a carpet sweeper where I instantly imagined that this was what my own Nana would have been like as a younger woman with a young family.

The other cast members match her almost flawlessly. The writing doesn't really distribute evenly (Eugene's older brother Stanley gets realized in ways that his live-in cousins Nora and Laurie don't; Dad really isn't much more than a tired sage spounting home-spun homilies), but still it all works masterfully and this really is one of Neil Simon's best plays.

Go check this out, especially if you don't really care for Neil Simon. This is the playwright at the beginning of the most artistically fulfulling span of his long career and this revival successfully demonstrates why this is so.

We both really enjoyed this. Go if you have the chance.

Marber has set the story in post-war 1940's British country house. John is a chauffeur and general aide to the lord of the manor who's also involved in an on/off relationship with Christine, the cook. John and Christine are hanging out in the kitchen one night while a raucous house party is going on. The lady of the house, the lord's 20-something daughter, gets bored with her party and comes to hang with the servants. And so it goes...

Basically it's all about forbidden passion and sex as power.

Tabloid princess Sienna Miller is Miss Julie, the lusty lady of the manor. Jonny Lee Miller, formerly television's Eli Stone, is John. And New York theatre stalward Marin Ireland is Christine. (The Millers, by the way, are, despite their shared surname, unrelated.)

The play is still in previews, so I won't write extensively about it, but I will say that I've never been a fan of the original Strindberg play. I've always thought it played more like an acting class exercise than an actual play. But this version was really compelling and, at 90 minutes, about a compact a drama as one could want.

I definitely recommend checking it out.

The first clue that this might not be a wholly satisfying evening was that the writer was also playing the lead. Writers, Rule #1 when mounting your off-Broadway show? Do not play the lead yourself. It automatically makes people think your play is some kind of vanity piece that's only being produced because your daddy and mommy wrote a check.

Anyhow, the idea here is that Kennedy was a nervous, stammering, shy guy who would never look anyone in the eye and who, basically, couldn't form a coherent sentence. He was also a lost boy who had no idea what he really wanted to do with his life because his father kept pushing him into jobs supporting his brother Jack's political ambitions.

Anyway, the author/leading man was okay, but not great. His Bobby was pretty one dimensional and there just wasn't much there beyond the Kennedy accent (one of those accents with which no one ever speaks, except for actors playing Kennedys).

Oh...the dad from The Wonder Years was in it.

And I also caught Carrie Fisher's one-woman show at Studio 54. This woman is fucking hilarious and you must get over there and hear what she has to say. She talks about all these horrible things that she's done and that have happened to her. But her point is that time and distance makes even the worst stuff funny. And you just have to laugh.

This woman has been to hell and back. Several times. Love it. I would totally love to sit down and have lunch with Carrie Fisher. I want to go back.

If anyone reading this doesn't know, I'm an actor. That's me. It's what I love and what I do whenever anyone will let me. And I also work in offices to pay the bills and keep stumbling along. I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's necessary and, on the other, I hate it. It bores the shit out of me. I want to go up to people and shake them and shout in their faces "Are you FUCKING with me with this shit?!"

But I'm good at it. It really depresses me some days that I can be so good at something that I hate so much. It makes me wonder if that's what life is...doing something you hate 40 hours a week just to survive and do things you love in the off hours.

I have a brain full of interesting information about theatre, pop culture, film, television, travel, and entertainment of all sorts. Are there any jobs out there that might require any or all of that? I have yet to find anything even close.

Is it even possible to wake up in the morning five days a week and put on a tie and go into an office and not be bored shitless?

I have no grand insight in this post...I'm just rambling on about what's on my mind tonight. Much more interesting that writing about the play I saw. Though I will most likely do that at some point too.

I do not want to go back to that office tomorrow.

We left New York at 4.00pm on a Greyhound bus bound for Washington. Four hours later, there we were, in our nation's capitol. We found our way to our hotel, an affordable choice that rated on the perfectly acceptable to nothing special scale. The problem was that this hotel was located pretty far out in a not-so-desirable part of town. Even a random cab driver told us the area was shitty. Ugh.

Anyway, we cabbed it over to Dupont Circle and had a late dinner in one of our favorite restaurants, a little place at Connecticut Avenue and Q Street called Circa. Then back to our hotel.

This morning, it was back to Dupont Circle where we walked through a lovely farmer's market, walked around the neighbourhood a bit, and had a snack at the local Krispy Kreme.

Then it was down to McPherson Square for the March. It was really cool to see such a diverse cross section of gays and lesbians from all walks of life and from all over the country. We hooked up with a group bringing attention to Immigration Equality, since this is an important and personal issue for us.

The march started about 30 minutes late and, by the time it did, I was just about dying from the crowds. There was SO many people. We were shoulder to shoulder with no space anywhere. Incredibly, people kept trying to move through the crowd as though those of us in the sea of humanity actually had someplace to go to allow them to pass. Nope.

Once the march started though, it was wonderful. There was plenty of room to walk and it was a gorgeous day. We circled around by the White House and then down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, which Tim insisted upon calling "that domey thing." We also passed the Washington Monument, "that big stick thing."

After the march, we were starving and headed to a pub called Elephant and Castle. Then it was a walk over to Union Station, just to have a look inside, and then back to the bus station for our trip home. We managed to get onto an earlier bus and get home an hour earlier than planned. Whoo-Hoo!

It really meant a lot to both of us to be able to be there.

If you don't know this play or the film that was based on it, it's basically about the aftermath of a one-on-one meeting between a college professor and one of his students. What she says happened and what he says are two diametrically opposed arguments and therein lies the play.

Actually, it's not so much a play as it is a theatrical exercise. It's three scenes and runs a total of 80 minutes. The first scene is a bit slow and boring. But then it almost has to be. The rest of the evening is about how the banal can be twisted and turned into something else entirely.

Pullman and Stiles do well by their roles. They do a wonderful job with characters that are not really characters, but rather symbols in the grand pageant of national conversation about harrassment that sprung up around the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill scandal, which all played out shortly before Mamet wrote the play.

And while the argument is inherently dramatic, the play isn't entirely successful as drama. At times, it's more like a trestise on sexual harrassment law. Oh, well...

There was a very interesting discussion group afterward with two lawyers and a moderator in which the play was discussed and questions from the audience were taken. This was really interesting and I enjoyed hearing all the various comments that came from the audience on this.

Wow! Gotta say this version of the production was amazing and cool and everything I'd always heard that Hair was, but had never really gotten before. The production works even better indoors than it did outdoors and the Claude of Gavin Creel is a vast improvement on that of Jonathan Groff, who did it in the park.

For most of the evening, the show is an essentially plotless enterprise in which we meet a bunch of New York hippies and drop outs who introduce themselves to the audience with a bunch of songs and groovy dancing. Slowly, but surely, the real world begins to intrude on the idyllic realm of peace and love and happiness. The reality of an unjust war in Vietnam comes home to the characters in most concrete way possible and makes the horrors of war apparent, even with not a single firearm on the stage.

The cast was terrific, starting with the aforementioned Gavin Creel, who brings such great energy to the stage as Claude. We totally get this guy as a sort of everyman who's a bit lost in his life and who finds a comforting family in this odd group. Creel turns up the not-so-closeted gayness in the character, especially in his attraction to Berger, the tribe's glam alpha male. But it's not just Berger who catches this Claude's eye. This Claude can barely keep his hands off any male member of the tribe who happens to be near and vice versa. And that was pretty great. Hair has always played coy about homosexuality (even a character who admits to wanting to bed Mick Jagger denies being gay), and it was nice to see Creel bringing this subtext out into the open. And to be fair, it's not just him...if you take a look around in the ensemble, there's much same sex action going on in this tribe.

Will Swenson is Berger, the show's other leading man, and the de facto leader of the tribe. Swenson is everything Berger needs to be and every person on stage and in the audience wants to sleep with him, be his friend, or both. And he knows it. Even when he's being an asshole, he's a charming asshole and you just can't hate the guy. Swenson even handles the character's one genuine moment, a reconciliation with his sometime girlfriend, to whom he's behaved abominably, with style and grace and made all of us fall for him all over again.

Every single cast member, including the one understudy who was on (Briana Carlson-Goodman as Crissy) was terrific and really brought something to the proceedings. Every person on the stage managed to create a character and that is a great thing in a show that only really sketches in most of the roles in the most minor way. There's just not much there, but this cast makes the most of it.

Finally, can I remark on just how beautiful the Al Hirschfeld (formerly the Martin Beck) Theatre is? Wow...this theatre has always been one of my favorites, but I was reminded tonight of just gorgeous a building this faux-Moorish palace is. And with the cast of the show performing in the aisles, even in the mezzanine, we got many chances to take in the decor.

We really had an amazing time and would not hesitate to recommend this show to anyone. For the curious, yes, the nudity is there in the famous first act finale, but it's such an organic part of the proceedings that it all seems perfectly natural and right.

You should go see it if you get a chance.

The theme this time around is death, dying, and mortality, subjects that yield more humor than one might think. Smith plays a combination of famous people (Lance Armstrong, Lauren Hutton, Joel Siegal, etc.) and not.

The play is still in previews, so I won't really go into a lot of details here, but I really enjoyed this. Go see it if you have a chance.