The labour of Lebowski.

Avid and obsessional followers of this blog, ( mythical creatures I know but so are Unicorns, —and you can still talk about Unicorns even if they don't exist) will remember my mentioning the 'Two Gentlemen of Lebowski' mash-up/play by Adam Bertolloci back in April.

Well it had to happen, and it did. Oh yes, and better still it happened in Limerick Citaye. A reading* of the aforementioned dramatic work, and oh it was educational too folks! I expected hoardes, considering the popularity of the The Dude and The Bard, and got instead a respectably fullish Loft. I hope that they enjoyed themselves, and weren't too confused. I had made the perverse decision to dispense with the spoken stage directions and instead have locations and action delineated with live sound effects.			* Yes,I hate readings, because the mother-fuckin' play's the thing,— but the Coen Bros have pot the Kibosh on performances so a reading is what we did, what with a half a loaf being better than no bread.

This was an approach fraught with danger and more likely to 'confuse and not explain' than it was to 'amuse and entertain', but we had Ger O'Leary on sound effects and I think that we carried it off. I felt very good indeed when I heard that at least one audience member had never seen the the fillum and enjoyed and understood the performance nevertheless: that's what you want.



In putting it together, I will say that I was at an enormous advantage, having taken part in previous readings with the Bot-Dogs. The normal set-up is a ten o'clock meet up for everyone, rehearse through the whole Sunday and put it on at half seven or eight in the evening; it sounds like plenty of time, considering that the actors are going to be just reading anyway, but having been through it a few times I can tell you that it's very little time indeed; realising that, in advance, was highly advantageous.



I was also at an advantage in the quality of thespians that we managed to inveigle into turning up and acting [free gratis and for diddly-squat]. The combination of cool smart people and advance planning meant that we got to do pretty much everything that my over-enthusiastically fevered brain had come up with, which was a small miracle in and of itself.

If I never get anybody, to do anything that I ask them to, ever again, I cannot complain, because this Sunday in the Loft, I had a set of talented trojans on my side, and we did 'Two Gentleman of Lebowski', in a fashion that I reckon, was to the absolute best of our resources and capabilities.

Oh, what a wonderful feeling.

Review of the show on 'Magic Bulletin '