The Useless Tree

Theater

  • Confucian Rectitude in “The Crucible”

    I saw a riveting production of Arthur Miller's classic, The Crucible, here at Williams College last Friday.  It was directed by the brilliant Omar Sangare, my friend and colleague.  I hadn't seen the show for many years, way back when… Continue reading

  • Tennessee Williams and Chinese Philosophy

    As regular readers (both of you) know: I have an interest in theater and recently appeared in a college production of "Streetcar Named Desire."  So, it was marvelous last night to see the riveting production of the same show put… Continue reading

  • Why we act

    Our production of A Streetcar Named Desire opens tonight.  It has garnered some favorable previews.  It will be interesting to see how a full audience (apparently it is selling out) will respond to a fairly radical re-telling of a classic… Continue reading

  • A Daoist Moment in Chekhov

    Last week we were down in New York City and, among other activities, we took in a performance of Chekhov's Three Sisters at the Classic Stage Company.  It was a marvelous night.  Our friend, Jessica  Hecht, was riveting as Olga,… Continue reading

  • The Dao of Blanche DuBois

    I'm in another play.  This time it's a campus production at Williams.  The cast is all students, except for me, the lone older guy.  We are doing A Streetcar Named Desire and Omar Sangare is our estimable director. This is,… Continue reading

  • Ephemera

    The show is over.  We had our last performance yesterday.  It was a great day – the Governor of Massachusetts was in the audience! – and a great run.  It was a marvelous five weeks.  But it's over now. By… Continue reading

  • More Thoughts on Taoism and Acting

    We have settled into the stretch run of Our Town: seven performances over the next five days.  Some nice photos over at our Facebook page.  The work has thus shifted from developing characters and relationships to consistently reproducing those characters… Continue reading

  • Running “Our Town”

    Blog silence for the past week has been caused by the crazy culmination of rehearsals and the first performances of Our Town.  It has been, to say the least, exhilarating and highly instructive.  I've been a bit coy up to… Continue reading

  • The De (Te) – 德 – of Acting

    I really thought summer would afford more time to blog.  But that is not happening.  The combination of a couple of writing projects, the play and various and sundry demands, has taken me away from this site.  But this morning… Continue reading

  • The Tao of Our Town

          On our first day of rehearsals our director talked for a bit about the themes of Our Town. He asked: “Why Our Town?” That is, why should a well-established professional theater company produce a play that just about every… Continue reading