Miscellany

Two readings this weekend--The Nose with Piven and Rhinoceros with Signal Ensemble--confirm that, yes, I'm back in Chicago theater, and yes, I'm enjoying it, and yes, certain things have changed in the way I approach the work. In The Nose there's a doctor character whom I recognized instantly for a Dottore--and that makes sense, since Gogol did a lot of writing in Italy (and said he had to come to Rome to see Russia properly). And in Rhinoceros I spent a lot of time thinking about masks, how you'd create them, how you'd perform with them.

The absurdity of The Nose is very much of a piece with Rhinoceros, despite the century or so that separates their creation. Gogol and Ionesco both managed to tap into a certain motherlode of absurdity that transcends eras--certainly one that goes beyond any specific movement of absurdism. Certain writers can do that. I'd also place Molière, Plautus, Kafka, and Cervantes in the group. There are others--we can all get to that frame of mind, which is part of why it's such effective art--but getting there as an artist is damn hard. I suppose that's part of why I went to Italy.

This weekend I also learned that a really splendid Chicago actor I know has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And he doesn't have health insurance. And because of that he had to leave the hospital.

I don't care how much lip service we pay to the importance of the arts; this is a damn shoddy way to treat our artists.

The Chicago theater community is rallying with all sorts of benefits and things--carpools to give him rides to chemo, for example--that make me proud and happy to be an actor here. But as a citizen, I'm embarrassed that these measures are necessary. As my friend Josh put it, American taxpayers now own the largest insurer in the world, and we still can't manage to offer health care to everyone. There has to be a better way.