Marc Beaudin

Dying City

Posted on June 17, 2016 by marcbeaudin

Dying City by Christopher Shinn
Caldera Theatre Company, 2016
Directed and designed by Marc Beaudin

Click image for full photo gallery.

Director’s Note from the program:

For us at the CTC, theatre as an artform doesn’t happen on the stage or in the actors’ imaginations. Rather it exists in the moment of communication between us and you. In the connection between actor and audience – the two coming together to create the reality of a moment, art happens. Television has viewers, sports events have spectators, but the theatre has participants. By choosing to accept our offer to come together in a certain place and time, to add your imaginations, memories, emotions and dreams to the cauldron, together we brew something magical, rare and beautiful: Truth.

In this play, the truth of these characters’ lives is evasive. It flashes in unexpected places, it fails to reside where we expect it to, it slips from our grasp when we most think we have hold of it. Mostly, it swims deep below the surface of what is spoken.

Kelly’s truth collides with that of Peter, her deceased husband’s twin. In flashback scenes, it’s Kelly and Craig’s truths that collide. All these truths are at odds with those of unseen (but heavily felt) parents, lovers, co-workers and patients – as well as the great (un)truth of the Iraq War.

But there is another truth at play here: the truth of being fully aware, in the moment. That’s what we seek, with your help, to create. What we find in that moment might be painful, it might be funny or difficult or confusing or upsetting or inspiring – but this is why we have theatre. To ask questions that may confound us, to explore the darkness because, paradoxically, that’s where the light is to be found. As Socrates reminds us, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”

Thank you for joining in our examination and for making the life of this moment worth the living.

A note on the set design:

The world of these characters, defined by the floor rug and the lighting, hovers within the void. Beyond Kelly’s apartment is darkness: the dark unknown of war, failed love, the past, the future – the door to the outside world. Memories, hopes and fears emerge from the void and return to it. Kelly and Peter are surrounded by it, compelled by it, but powerless against it. Craig is both of it and not of it. The only thing on the set that rests in the void but connects into the apartment is the television – offering a relationship to the world beyond the void. But is it a true offer, or just another lie? Is it connection or anethesia?

Posted in Directing, Set Design | Tagged christopher shinn, dying city, Iraq, new york, Socrates, war | 3 Comments

Hundred Highways Tour #35, 36: I-90 & U.S. 12 to Fact and Fiction Books

Posted on May 2, 2016 by marcbeaudin

We planned on taking back roads, maybe 141 to 200 so we could pass through Avon and Ovando, or maybe 1 to 38 to 93 to find road drinks in Porters Corner or Victor. But by the time we got out the door, we had just enough time to race on the interstate unfreeway, straight to our hotel in Missoula, a block away from the reading at Fact & Fiction.

We arrived with a few minutes to spare: enough to run across the street to grab two bottles of wine to share with the small but friendly crowd. One of the wines was named “Duct Tape” and tasted as bad as it sounds, but I had to get it anyway in honor of the line from my poem “M-46, October”:

Clyde’s old diesel rolls to a wary stop
& I hop from the cab
onto a protest of gravel
beneath my duct-taped boots

The store is a good reminder of how fantastic and vital our local, independent bookshops are. The shelves are packed with books that go much deeper than the generic quick reads of box stores or malls. “Local author” tags protrude from everywhere. Barbara and Mara are more than welcoming and, as with indie shops across the country, I feel at home. All those local author signs represent the important bond between writers and bookstores; both help make a town vibrant, both need each other to thrive. As a writer, I can’t say enough about booksellers who support writers. As a bookseller, I can’t say enough about the authors who support my store, Elk River Books.

Photo by Nathan Snow

We finished the night at a downtown bar, ringing in my birthday with $6 pitchers of PBR and an unbelievably delicious shot of Jameson compliments of my stepson and his friends who took turns rocking the karaoke machine and commanding the dance floor. I successfully avoided the former, but have a vague memory of visiting the latter.

In the morning, or rather afternoon, I packed by road case and we headed north.

Posted in Hundred Highways, Writing | Tagged bookstores, duct tape, Elk River Books, Fact and Fiction, highways, independent bookstores, Missoula, Poetry, travel, writers | 1 Comment

Birthday Poem 2016

Posted on April 19, 2016 by marcbeaudin

Birthday Poem, 2016

Let’s begin the day
listening to Brahms in a Missoula hotel room
then the drive
along the spring roiling of the Flathead River
with tongues of fog lolling up from mouths of fir trees
to taste the sky

Let’s stop at a bar in Thompson Falls
empty but for a daytime card game
of somebodies’ grandmothers
to have a pint & find out if the pass is open–
snow & rain & elk & a wild turkey
at the roadside like a desolate hitchhiker–
but drivable if we take it slow

& the confusion of west-flowing rivers
in place of my habitual eastbound ones

Yesterday, a coyote on the median
testing the limits of mortality
& the physics of steel,
Tomorrow, a dark corner bar in Spokane
with bad music & too many TVs
But today,
as soaring as the Brahms
as delicate as the fog,
to be here with the woman I love
with bellies full of sushi
& the lights of Coeur d’Alene seeping
through the blinds &
painting our bodies in joy

–Marc Beaudin, 14 April 2016

Posted in poetry, Writing | Tagged Birthday Poems, Brahms, Classical music, Coeur d' Alene, Flathead River, Missoula, Poetry, Spokane, Thompson Falls | Leave a comment