That's right, no respect. Not for sado-masochism, though, for stage managing.
By profession, I'm a theatrical stage manager, working out of Manhattan. It's been my job for the better part of 28 years, and it's a good job, an interesting one, frequently a challenging one, but not a job that most people outside of the theatre understand in the least. My doctor, for instance, who I've been seeing for at least 20 years, is still under the impression that I'm a director.
That's not unexpected -- after all stage managing rarely comes up in polite conversation about the arts, unless it's during discussions of Thorton Wilder's play Our Town, in which the narrator is a character called the Stage Manager (played by Paul Newman in the most recent Broadway revival). Other than that, you hear the term used mostly as a pejorative for people who manipulate things behind the scenes, as in diplomacy or politics or business negotiations.
But for all the practical invisibility of the job outside of "the business," generally any play, movie or television show which is set backstage will at least acknowledge the existence of us poor slobs -- you get the funny little guy that the director leans on when he's unhappy and wants company in 42nd Street, or the fellow who yells at Gene Kelly or Cagney or Judy Garland when something goes wrong, or, at the very least, someone hanging around in the shadows who seems to have something important to do with what's going on, even if it's not clear what, exactly, it is.
Not respect, precisely, but acknowledgement.
Which is why I was disappointed with the recent episode of the USA detective series "Monk" which was set backstage, because, despite an inordinate amount of time spent on or around the stage of a San Francisco playhouse, the stage manager seemed almost non-existant.
When Monk and his assistant/nurse Sharona (and Sharona's mother, played by Betty Buckley) wandered on stage and started nosing around, it wasn't the stage manager who confronted them, it was the prop master. And when Monk inquired about the confusion between the apparent murder weapon, a real knife, and the retracting stage knife that should have been preset for the actress accused of the murder to use, it's the prop master who, again, swears it was set correctly -- even though it will be the ultimate responsibility of one of the stage managers to check to see that it's properly set for the performance.
And when someone dies onstage, it's the director who jumps out of the audience onto the stage and calls for a doctor in the house, not the stage manager. (OK, it was opening night, so having the director there wouldn't be unusual, but still...) And why, for heaven sake, does no one in stage management do anything later on in the show when Monk misses his entrance, blows his blocking, mutters his lines and generally does a pretty good job if illustrating The Art of Coarse Acting?
Anybody there ever heard of ringing in the curtain, and starting over, preferably with someone who can do the part?
Yes, I know it's played for laughts, and I really do enjoy the series, which I think has found the right balance between crime-solving and the comedy of Monk's personality quirks, but would it have hurt for them to have thrown a sop at us, and have a stage manager around doing something important-looking? (OK, OK, there's the guy accompanying the director, maybe he's supposed to be the SM, and a bunch of people with wireless headsets backstaging pushing Monk around and pointing to the entrance, but, really, is that all my honorable profession rates?
Well, at least my parents (finally) understand what I do. (I think.)
absolutist
aggresive
anti-Constitutional
anti-intellectual
arrogant
authoritarian
blame-placers
blameworthy
blinkered
buckpassers
calculating
class warriors
clueless
compassionless
con artists
conniving
conscienceless
conspiratorial
corrupt
craven
criminal
crooked
culpable
damaging
dangerous
deadly
debased
deceitful
delusional
despotic
destructive
devious
disconnected
dishonorable
dishonest
disingenuous
disrespectful
dogmatic
doomed
fanatical
fantasists
felonious
hateful
heinous
hostile to science
hypocritical
ideologues
ignorant
immoral
incompetent
indifferent
inflexible
insensitive
insincere
irrational
isolated
kleptocratic
lacking in empathy
lacking in public spirit
liars
mendacious
misleading
mistrustful
non-rational
not candid
not "reality-based"
not trustworthy
oblivious
oligarchic
opportunistic
out of control
pernicious
perverse
philistine
plutocratic
prevaricating
propagandists
rapacious
relentless
reprehensible
rigid
scandalous
schemers
selfish
secretive
shameless
sleazy
tricky
unAmerican
uncaring
uncivil
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unconstitutional
undemocratic
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unrealistic
unreliable
unrepresentative
unscientific
unscrupulous
unsympathetic
venal
vile
virtueless
warmongers
wicked
without integrity
wrong-headed
Thanks to: Breeze, Chuck, Ivan Raikov, Kaiju, Kathy, Roger, Shirley, S.M. Dixon
recently seen
i've got a little list...
Elliott Abrams
Steven Abrams (Kansas BofE)
David Addington
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Roger Ailes (FNC)
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Bob Bennett
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Joe Biden
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George W. Bush
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Dick Cheney
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The Coors Family
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Sean Hannity
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Fred Hiatt (WaPo)
Christopher Hitchens
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Don Imus
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Daryn Kagan
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Phil Kline
Ron Klink
William Kristol
Ken Lay
Joe Lieberman
Rush Limbaugh
Trent Lott
Frank Luntz
"American Fundamentalists"
by Joel Pelletier
(click on image for more info)
Chris Matthews
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Stephen C. Meyer (DI)
Judith Miller (ex-NYT)
Zell Miller
Tom Monaghan
Sun Myung Moon
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recent listening
influences
John Adams
Laurie Anderson
Aphex Twin
Isaac Asimov
Fred Astaire
J.G. Ballard
The Beatles
Busby Berkeley
John Cage
"Catch-22"
Raymond Chandler
Arthur C. Clarke
Elvis Costello
Richard Dawkins
Daniel C. Dennett
Philip K. Dick
Kevin Drum
Brian Eno
Fela
Firesign Theatre
Eliot Gelwan
William Gibson
Philip Glass
David Gordon
Stephen Jay Gould
Dashiell Hammett
"The Harder They Come"
Robert Heinlein
Joseph Heller
Frank Herbert
Douglas Hofstadter
Bill James
Gene Kelly
Stanley Kubrick
Jefferson Airplane
Ursula K. LeGuin
The Marx Brothers
John McPhee
Harry Partch
Michael C. Penta
Monty Python
Orbital
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
"The Prisoner"
"The Red Shoes"
Steve Reich
Terry Riley
Oliver Sacks
Erik Satie
"Singin' in the Rain"
Stephen Sondheim
The Specials
Morton Subotnick
Talking Heads/David Byrne
Tangerine Dream
Hunter S. Thompson
J.R.R. Tolkien
"2001: A Space Odyssey"
Kurt Vonnegut
Yes
Bullshit, trolling, unthinking knee-jerk dogmatism and the drivel of idiots will be ruthlessly deleted and the posters banned.
Entertaining, interesting, intelligent, informed and informative comments will always be welcome, even when I disagree with them.
I am the sole judge of which of these qualities pertains.
E-mail
All e-mail received is subject to being published on unfutz without identifying names or addresses.
Corrections
I correct typos and other simple errors of grammar, syntax, style and presentation in my posts after the fact without necessarily posting notification of the change.
Substantive textual changes, especially reversals or major corrections, will be noted in an "Update" or a footnote.
Also, illustrations may be added to entries after their initial publication.
the story so far
unfutz: toiling in almost complete obscurity for almost 1500 days
If you read unfutz at least once a week, without fail, your teeth will be whiter and your love life more satisfying.
If you read it daily, I will come to your house, kiss you on the forehead, bathe your feet, and cook pancakes for you, with yummy syrup and everything.
(You might want to keep a watch on me, though, just to avoid the syrup ending up on your feet and the pancakes on your forehead.)
Finally, on a more mundane level, since I don't believe that anyone actually reads this stuff, I make this offer: I'll give five bucks to the first person who contacts me and asks for it -- and, believe me, right now five bucks might as well be five hundred, so this is no trivial offer.
