Denouement via The People's Court
Mar. 8th, 2010 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceebeegeeAnya and I went over to Tesse's last night to watch the People's Court. Oh. Mah. Lord. Julie does NOT come off particularly well in this and actually a part of me (a small part) felt kind of bad for her, she seemed...vulnerable. She walked in, smiled (!) at the court spectators as though it were an audition or something and then as Rachel said seemed very confused about where to stand. Catherine and Michael, our stage manager, came in and Catherine just seemed more believable and authoritative from the start. Julie blamed the lack of cohesiveness in the show on Catherine, laid it all at her feet, was saying the show wasn't ready to go up, and she didn't want to be associated with a bad show. (Julie has always been very concerned about that sort of thing--you'd think someone who is so self-conscious would avoid casting themselves in roles for which they're way too old, like Hermione and Andromache.) Here's the deal--right before the plug was pulled, the show was very underblocked, and I was a little worried, I couldn't understand why we were still going so slowly. Catherine seemed to like readthroughs a lot--that's all fine and good, but when we're two weeks from opening, we need some blocking. And readthroughs are just a first step, we had done no text analysis, VERY important with the witches. (Especially since they'd cut the crap out of it--I started calling it Macb--. Why do people always want to cut Macbeth? It's the shortest of the tragedies as it is, guys! Why would you want to cut any of that spooky shit? The only thing you should cut is that stupid Hecate scene which Will didn't even write, and which adds nothing.)
However, the things that were good, were really good. David, our Macbeth, was terrific--God, was he good. During the readthroughs I would just watch him, and when he killed young Siward and sneered "Thou wast of woman born"....brrr! So good. He was so good, he made her better, and as I've said, Lady Macbeth is a character who is fundamentally, in every way, Julie's complete opposite, and she's not a good enough actress to play someone so different. But still David was pulling her along. The fights were good. Most of the rest of the cast was good (there was one weird dude who played the Porter who I couldn't stand, kept making these weird familiar remarks to me and Lori and Michelle. Naturally he's the one person who sided with Julie). As underblocked as the show was, we still had TEN DAYS left, plenty of time for a well-cast show to fall into place. So maybe Catherine wasn't quite as on top of things as she could've been--but ultimately that is Julie's responsibility as Producer. She should've kept a firm hand at the reins, especially after she'd fired the first director, her weird friend Lew. Listening to her blame Catherine for everything was frustrating--Julie, I've produced. I know what it's like. The buck stops with you. The director is there to direct, but ultimately you're what holds the show together.
So the judge ruled for Catherine--the amount was a little odd, I guess at first Catherine had filed for a smaller amount (like $150 or so), then the judge let her adjust it to a larger amount (the full amount of her negotiated director's fee, $450 or something). Catherine also sought reimbursement for the money she'd paid out for rehearsal space--you could tell the judge wanted to give her that but she didn't have any paperwork or emails to back it up, so she just got the $450.
What the hell was Julie thinking? I mean, it was tacky enough to yank the production but to stiff everyone? She claimed that everyone else had been paid, including the actors--uh, no we didn't! I just don't get why she went through all of this. Just pay the money. What you did was really, really poor form--you're just compounding it by being so cheap. Just pay the money. Afterward when they interviewed her, she said she thought it "wasn't right" that Michael, who is suing her separately, should be allowed to testify. What? Just stop it, Julie. The interviewer tried to get her to declaim some Lady Macbeth but she wouldn't. (GOD, would that have been comedy gold!) When Michael and Catherine came out, Michael made a point of saying the production had been remounted a few months later with "a lot of the same cast" (the production at the Workshop Theatre) and it was very good.
However, the things that were good, were really good. David, our Macbeth, was terrific--God, was he good. During the readthroughs I would just watch him, and when he killed young Siward and sneered "Thou wast of woman born"....brrr! So good. He was so good, he made her better, and as I've said, Lady Macbeth is a character who is fundamentally, in every way, Julie's complete opposite, and she's not a good enough actress to play someone so different. But still David was pulling her along. The fights were good. Most of the rest of the cast was good (there was one weird dude who played the Porter who I couldn't stand, kept making these weird familiar remarks to me and Lori and Michelle. Naturally he's the one person who sided with Julie). As underblocked as the show was, we still had TEN DAYS left, plenty of time for a well-cast show to fall into place. So maybe Catherine wasn't quite as on top of things as she could've been--but ultimately that is Julie's responsibility as Producer. She should've kept a firm hand at the reins, especially after she'd fired the first director, her weird friend Lew. Listening to her blame Catherine for everything was frustrating--Julie, I've produced. I know what it's like. The buck stops with you. The director is there to direct, but ultimately you're what holds the show together.
So the judge ruled for Catherine--the amount was a little odd, I guess at first Catherine had filed for a smaller amount (like $150 or so), then the judge let her adjust it to a larger amount (the full amount of her negotiated director's fee, $450 or something). Catherine also sought reimbursement for the money she'd paid out for rehearsal space--you could tell the judge wanted to give her that but she didn't have any paperwork or emails to back it up, so she just got the $450.
What the hell was Julie thinking? I mean, it was tacky enough to yank the production but to stiff everyone? She claimed that everyone else had been paid, including the actors--uh, no we didn't! I just don't get why she went through all of this. Just pay the money. What you did was really, really poor form--you're just compounding it by being so cheap. Just pay the money. Afterward when they interviewed her, she said she thought it "wasn't right" that Michael, who is suing her separately, should be allowed to testify. What? Just stop it, Julie. The interviewer tried to get her to declaim some Lady Macbeth but she wouldn't. (GOD, would that have been comedy gold!) When Michael and Catherine came out, Michael made a point of saying the production had been remounted a few months later with "a lot of the same cast" (the production at the Workshop Theatre) and it was very good.
