xtcian

10/5/03 We saw The Lucretia

10/5/03

We saw The Lucretia Jones Mysteries last night, and if you were in the New York area and didn't go, I'm not sure how much easier they could have made it for you. It was truly an artistic success, with stunning performances from Mac, Sean and Jordana, but it was also a triumph in smart producing. The play was a comedy, 57 minutes long, only on the weekends at 6pm, so you could do what you were going to do that night anyway. Anyway, it's done for now, until someone with a bit of cash and a penchant for rat-a-tat-tat dialogue moves it to a bigger venue.

Tessa, Jordana, me and Mac after the show

Later that night we transferred our "Pink House" DV cam PAL tape to NTSC yet again and dropped it off at our sound lab (even at 11pm on a Saturday night, the indie film business is still rockin'). Then we trucked down to Namaskar, a bar in Soho with refreshingly little pretension. It was Eva Lindemann's birthday, and the fact that she was turning 30 gave me a bit of an unexpected lilt - it's going to be great to watch all of my 2nd and 3rd-generation Carolina friends go into their 30s in the coming years (you know, since Bud and Chip and Jon and Kendall and Salem and I have all been there for years).

I finally got to meet Jiffer's longtime long-distance boyfriend Ingo, which was totally cool. The elusive, sweet, Buddha known as N'Gai Wright also showed up at the behest of Jiffer, and it was awesome to see him again. N'Gai was a longtime resident of the Pink House and served as direct inspiration for the character N'Wal in the movie. In the film, N'Wal is more outrageous, young-seeming and profane than N'Gai ever was. Ingo is also in the movie, as part of a running gag.

It raises an interesting question - at least six people will attend next Monday's special "friends 'n' family" screening of The Pink House and see themselves portrayed on-screen. In many cases, the "character" that borrowed their names, their best lines, and their spirit won't match reality, and they might feel a little betrayed. The original draft of the screenplay was very true to the people I knew in real life, but after 5 or 6 drafts, their doppelgangers melded into outright caricatures. The Pink House "Scott" is actually a combination of Scott Bullock and Chip Chapman, but neither of them would behave the way "Scott" does in the movie.

I suppose I'll be hearing from Chip's team of lawyers. Damn him!

N'Gai, Jiffer, me last night