The Squirrels (Robert Askins)
Often if I think I’ll like something, especially a play, I’ll delay reading it, because I know it will be easy to convince myself to read it if I ever want to. That’s why despite being excited to read Robert Askins The Squirrels for over a year now I didn’t do so until today.
It’s a comedy. It’s silly. It’s dramatic. It’s about anthropomorphized animals. It’s a satire about something I care about! It really has everything going for it.
But, much like Eureka Day from earlier this week I was left wanting. I don’t fully know why. Maybe I’ll learn to love it later.
It doesn’t help that it’s billed as a satire about wealth inequality, and it’s really not. It is a proper (and unexpected) epic, following two battling factions, betrayal, and the danger of faltering power, or seeking power. As a result it’s not just “one” thing, but it’s clearly more a story about race relations (and other forms of tribalism) than it is about wealth inequality.
I suppose we should get to something as banal as the plot before thinking about the themes.
Introduced by a “Cartoon Scientist” we’re introduced to some squirrels in a maple tree. Sciurus once was the greatest squirrel in the tree, maybe he still is, but he’s getting older, his mind is getting more feeble, and he’s not feeling as adored as he once was. He’s also a grey squirrel carrying a lot of prejudice towards the fox squirrels, who he thinks are lower-class, dirty, and lazy.
His daughter and her fox squirrel friend plead for him to give up some of his massive stores of nuts to help the other squirrels through the winter. His adopted and selfish fox squirrel adopted daughter and a shifty conman out to make his nut persuade him that they’re trying to take advantage of him. What follows is an epic squirrel war for survival and relevance that leaves many dead (and gruesomely injured.)
It’s hysterical. Especially in a world where we’ve been beating up on the intelligence of the wealthy for a year, the wealthy and the “powerful” come across as scared and desperate to retain standing. The cycle of mistrust and violence is portrayed powerfully, decried, then indulged in by those who decry it. It gets a little too silly at times, many words are substituted for others and I got a little tired of it, but if you like the gravitas of Succession and the humor of The Play That Goes Wrong you’re going to find something special in this play. It’s Squirrel King Lear, and the world is better off for it.
Still, there is something missing, and I have no idea what it is. I’d love to realize this play, or to see it, but I can’t say for all of its successes that it gets me excited, at least not yet. If at the end of the year this is the best play I’ve read, I’ll be a little disappointed.
As a Producer
More than any other play I’ve read this year (heh,) this fits the Pronoia mold perfectly. It’s my style of humor and the satire does an excellent job of making you think and look at things. It’s definitely the sort of show I’d produce, or insist others produce.
As a Designer
Dear lord, is this a designer’s dream. Obviously costumes has a lot to do: everyone is a squirrel, what does a cartoon scientist look like, do we want to rip squirrel testicles off; but scenery can either build a beautiful tree for the squirrels to play in, or seek to make something more like our own; the almost melodramatic stakes gives lighting and sound as much to indulge as the director will allow. It’s a playground of opportunity.
As a Writer
I’ve never tried to write a proper Juvenalian satire, something with big stakes and a lot to say about the world. Partly it’s because I most enjoy smaller stories, and that sort of satire tends to take things to epic proportions (as seen here,) and partly it’s because I don’t have a lot to say. I do have a few ideas that I think could reach the energy found here, but mostly I admire the vision to see this project through and the courage to mix the stupid and profound in such a magical way.
A Girl's Guide to Chaos (Cynthia Heimel)
Success occasionally defeats itself. As soon as there is a gold standard, what was once a competitive advantage becomes de rigueur, and you have to do so much more work to stand out. This affects comedy to a greater extent than other industries: a successful comedian breeds many imitators, and then that person is seen as nothing new.
That perhaps is true of today’s play A Girl’s Guide to Chaos by Cynthia Heimel. It is by no means bad or boring, but it could be said to be comedically inert. In 2023 there’s nothing new about it, but that probably wasn’t true in 1988 when it was written.
Cynthia Heimel was an article writer for many publications, including Playboy. In interviews she stated that she was a square peg: too sex-focused for academic feminism and too angry for traditional fashion magazines she took work where she could get it. She may have been a radical voice in the 80’s and 90’s, but today her opinions from that time read as normal.
A Girl’s Guide to Chaos is adapted from her articles and boy does it show. Even though there are ostensibly five characters looking for love in New York City in 1988, in reality everyone sounds the same and has the same comedic voice as Heimel herself.
Thankfully, it is a funny voice, and the play clips along, but it doesn’t ever settle into a conventional plot, but mostly has the characters trade comedic monologues that briefly settle into something resembling a conversation. It’s a bit like Sex in the City by way of Cathy.
I’d be highly interested in how this show plays today. It’s self-consciously set in 1988, modern by the play’s standards, terribly far in the past for us. The characters contrast their modern existence to what was happening the 70s too frequently for it to be easily updated to modern day. I think it could still play well today.
As a Producer
If Pronoia were to produce this, it would primarily be as a historical piece, which is something I’ve wanted to do for some time.
As a Designer
There’s quite a lot here to do, actually. The play doesn’t exist anywhere, so the scenic design can go wild and crazy, depending on what the director wants to do; since it’s set in the 80’s that makes props and costumes have a clear direction to go in, but with plenty of options to choose from; and although the inclination would be to go simple with the lighting, a skilled designer could have a lot of fun building moments since the play isn’t exactly realistic and moves around constantly.
Writing Lessons
The trouble with writing these immediately following reading the play is that I haven’t had time to sit with any ideas, or to fully follow them and see if they’re fertile. As time goes on we’ll see if it changes, but it basically means that if there isn’t something I love and want to steal, it’s hard to have a lot to put in this section.
This play’s undergirding is similar to what is arguably my most successful piece of writing, Bertie: A Tragedy in Eight Comedies, in that this is strung together articles masquerading as a cohesive piece, and Bertie is a series of sketches attempting the same thing. If I notice that structure and see its flaws, could it be that Bertie has similar problems?
The last two revisions of Bertie have sought to take steps away from the sketch comedy roots and establish more traditional theatrical story-telling, maybe I need to keep going in that direction.
Or maybe not? Who knows.
2022 Goals Report Card
At the beginning of last year Steven and I put forth 18 goals we wanted to accomplish (16 of which are listed below,) let’s check in to see how we did!
If you had asked me before I looked at the list I would have said we did dismally, though we actually fared better than my memory suggested: fully completing half of our stated goals, and only entirely failing three: a good showing in a disappointing year.
The Good!
Reestablish Medium and Long Term Goals: Steven and I sat down in March to lay out things we wanted to do. It was a short list, and we didn’t really succeed in laying the groundwork for those goals, but we did list them, so good for us.
Develop Classes and Workshops/Explore Teaching: We didn’t do a full write-up of the workshops we have in our heads, but we did teach two corporate workshops, and are iterating on those lesson plans while looking forward to more in 2023!
Finish, Continue, and Plan Space Train: we decided to end the live production of Space Train at the end of Season 2 and 27 produced episodes, while gearing up for an as-of-yet not announced rerecording of the episodes in a higher quality format (this doesn’t count as announcement, it’s still not announced, no one say any differently.) A rough outline for the story of season 3 and beginning of season 4 does exist, if they ever come to pass.
Pay Performers for Four Shows: We did eleven shows in 2022 which could have resulted in paying performers, our eleven shows at Eureka and the MLH film. The MLH film made back its budget but not enough to payout performers, and of the Eureka shows only two didn’t make enough money to pay people, making this one of our most successful goals! A caveat: Although there were ten or so performers eligible to be paid, almost everybody chose to return their money to the theater, for which we are very grateful.
Pay off company debt: we wrote about this yesterday, but we were successful in accomplishing this! We paid off the last two thousand dollars of debt over the last three months of the year. I’m quite happy since this was my major goal in both 2020 and 2021. Third time’s the charm!
Four or more new directors for Space Train: in the end five extremely skilled new people directed our final episodes of Space Train. Special thanks to Kacie Adams, Chelsea Curto, Lauren Hainley, Ruth McCleskey, and Hilary Ritz
Collect 26 or more rejections: in the end we got 40 rejections on 43 applications in an ego-depleting year.
The Qualified- There were five goals that we didn’t fully complete, but nonetheless made progress on.
Perform in two new venues: Although we were thoroughly rejected from many of the new festivals we applied for this year (and some old ones!) We did have a trip on the books to Montana, which got delayed to this year; we were accepted into the Singapore Improv Festival, but we couldn’t afford to go; and we performed digitally in new places, which Steven accepted as a partial victory.
Experiment with forms: Part of what we did this year at Eureka with SARA was a constant creation of new improv forms, however that was not done with the intent that I think Steven was looking for. I also began work on a new immersive theater project, but it is still in early development.
Throw more Theatrical parties: this should probably be a full success, but “we” did throw “more” in that we threw two, and I was the one who threw them though it was Steven’s goal, so I don’t know if he feels it was successful.
Film four or more sketches: We did make a short film for Magical Lying Hour this year, which was a large undertaking, and we did “film” material for three more sketches, though they sit, unedited and unloved on my computer. This item has an uncomfortable tension in it: I don’t like filming all that much, but I do feel it is necessary to grow awareness of what we do, so my heart isn’t in this goal.
Produce (or abandon) Start Your Endings: What I wanted to do was either do this show or stop thinking about, but I never stopped thinking about it. We tried and failed to get funding for the show three times, and it was rejected from consideration at other theaters four times in 2022. As we look to make more audio productions SYE is in a bad place because it is a highly visual work that can’t be filmed easily.
Failures
Execute a full production: We wanted to, we had an opportunity to, but we had to cancel that show. Full details of that were sent out on our newsletter if anyone is interested in wrapping themselves in our disappointment and embarrassment.
Finish Digital Clean-Up Plan: this was a vague goal that is tedious to complete. I still haven’t done it, but I probably will “soon”.
Write two or more God Kings episodes: after the debacle of the show we had to cancel I got in a creative funk and didn’t write anything, and chose not to pursue more God Kings. Although I love the series, and it is the latest iteration of an idea I’ve wanted to complete since 2014, it didn’t get much attention, seems to lack a market, and overall folks don’t seem to want or care about it that much.
That was our 2022 in goals! I don’t know if we’ll enumerate goals again for 2023, but if we do you’ll find them here!
The Valiant (Holworthy Hall and Robert Middlemass)
This is somehow the second play I’ve read already this year that has to do with people on death row. What a time!
The Valiant by Holworth Hall and Robert Middlemass is a play from 1920, about the mysterious identity behind a man scheduled for execution in an hour. His calm demeanor perplexes the warden and the chaplain, as he’s assumed to be under a pseudonym, and shows great poise under pressure. While they mull over who he is, why he’s done what he’s done (murder, that is,) and why they have the feeling that justice isn’t being served, a young woman shows up on the off-chance that the prisoner is her long-estranged brother.
As a play it doesn’t go for a schmaltzy ending, and is thoroughly uninterested in answering questions for the audience, instead deciding to focus on unblinkingly staring at the pain of things that can’t be taken back, and questioning whether truth is useful in its own sake, or whether it’s better to live with a comforting lie or ambiguity.
As a Producer
This isn’t a show for Pronoia: although the end of the play is lovely in its pain, it doesn’t (for me) justify its existence, and it is too bleak for our kind of show. Given the age of the play (first published in 1920,) and its (to me) unremarkable nature, I thought it unlikely that this play would be produced much anymore, or that anyone would stumble across it accidentally, but it seems to be fairly popular among amateur groups and churches (as it is thoroughly inoffensive while still being decently moving,) and there are news items of it being produced a few times in the last few years. I don’t see this being done by any professional company in Houston unless Classical runs out of money or time and needs to do something cheap or fast.
As a Designer
I don’t think there’s much here to tickle the imagination. Among the many, many, many descriptions of things that happen the young woman’s costume sounds interesting to pull off, but it’s a play of mostly men in mostly uniforms, in a drab office, so I don’t think there’s much to sink your teeth into (which isn’t to say that it can’t be rendered beautifully, but I don’t think there are any strong challenges or opportunities that set this show apart.)
As a Writer
My senior year at university the student theater organization considered remounting a play from the inaugural season in celebration of a major anniversary. For that purpose Maggie Sulc read J. M. Barrie’s Rosalind (which will eventually show up here since I own it still and haven’t read it,) and her main take-away was how frustrating it was that there was a parenthetical direction seemingly with every line. The Valiant is rife with that.
Seemingly every line either has dictated movement or emphasis, as a reader that was tiring and in consideration for acting it, it’s annoying. I don’t think there’s much to take away from the writing of the play except for that, unfortunately.
Debt Free!
Although 2022 was at best a conflicted year for Pronoia Theater we did manage to achieve one major goal that's eluded us for some time: we are now completely out of debt (for the time being)!
The company isn’t entirely self-supporting, several expenses (most notably asset library subscriptions and this website itself) are still paid out of pocket by Aaron and Steven, but the business hit a high-water mark of debt in 2020 around $5000, which we have fully paid back.
This debt primarily represents capital purchases: our sound system being the chief cost, but also investment in merchandise, and start-up expenses.
We had originally expected to pay down our debt by the end of 2020 with revenue from shows, but we know how that went. We get minimal donations for our online work, in 2021 we discovered about $1500 in repairs and new acquisitions were needed, and our ticket sales at live shows are still down by about 400% from where they were in 2019, leading to a much longer time to pay everything back.
Paying down this debt allow the following:
The company will need to take less money from each show so we can allocate a greater percentage to paying our performers*
We can focus on moving the out-of-pocket expenses for the business currently paid by Aaron and Steven to the business (making it self-supporting)
We can plan for larger projects and bigger budgets, potentially finding a way to do a large staged show!
No matter how you slice it we’re excited for this development, and are looking forward to everything we can do in the future! In the grand tradition of theaters this is a great time to say: we’re doing great, help us do even better by making a donation (or purchasing something from our store)!
*This is a complex topic, very much a battle of ideals v. practicality, and if people would like to know more about how Pronoia handles it let me know, and I’ll address that topic in the future!