The Hotel Nepenthe (and dog training)

Last night I saw "The Hotel Nepenthe" done by Actors Shakespeare Project. Some of my favorite actors in Boston were in it!



What a quirky, entertaining, thoughtful show! The premise is a bit hard to explain, but essentially it's about a bunch of characters who are connected by this one hotel. There were four actors playing many different parts and they did a fantastic job of defining each individual character. Some of the strongest acting I've seen. And so very funny! The tone of the show bounced around considerably. Some scenes were noir-ish others seemed like they were right out of a slapstick comedy. Some were family drama or magical realism. All of them were engaging and all of the characters felt real. I believed them all. Even the outrageous ones!

The ending was a little bit of a cop out, but I wasn't too upset by it because I got what they were trying to say. And I liked it.

The lighting and sound design were phenomenal. The set never really changed (it consisted of four "dressing rooms" with a bunch of clothes on each rack, a podium, a bathtub, a couch, some chairs, some tvs, and some video cameras), but there were SO many locations. They had scenes take place in cars, taxis, buses, a bedroom, an elevator, a rental car agency, and a store and I was never unclear where people were. The actors made us believe it with their physicality and the lights and sound brought us the rest of the way there. For example the bus was merely one guy sitting on the couch on the opposite side of the stage from a guy sitting in a fold up chair. When he stumbled up to the guy playing the driver I really saw the bus because of how he moved and the sound effects they used. It was so simple, but so very effective!

Oh! And the show was done in an old retail space which they did a lot of neat things with! For the scene that took place in a store they just turned on the horrifying florescent lights.

There was one monologue where the actor just had to list off a ton of people and you don't really know why she's doing it until the end of the monologue, but she manages to keep you interested the entire way through. It was really lovely to watch her see each person.

I like bizarre plays that confuse me. I felt like I was putting together a puzzle as I watched and that was so goddamn fun!

Just a really unique, wonderful experience. I'm so glad I got the chance to see it and it's nice to know that Boston is doing theatre like that.



We had our first dog training class with Maestro today!

It was pretty damn informative!

Evidently it's going to be hardest for me to be "alpha dog" in our pack because female owner/male dog (male owner/female dog is the easiest) is the most difficult relationship to have authority over. If I don't train him now he's going to "think I'm his bitch" in the words of the trainer. AWESOME. So we've got to shut that down so our pup doesn't turn into a jerk.

Amusingly enough I get e-mail updates about Maestro's development. They e-mail me every time he reaches a milestone (12 weeks, 16 weeks, etc) and tell me what to expect when he's that age. I got the one for 20 weeks this morning and the sub text was basically "At this age your dog is going to turn into a huge douchebag, have fun!!". It said he's going to bark for no reason. Start marking his territory. Stop listening. etc. etc. They said the best way to deal with this is to train them daily. So! I'm thinking it was a good time to start dog classes...

Here are the things we're supposed to work on with Maestro:
- putting him in his crate at least once a day and having him sleep in it at least once a week (this is so gets comfortable in his crate, it's "his place". He can feel safe and comfortable there. That way we'll never have to worry about putting him there when we have to, we'll know he will be okay!)
- making sure he sees us eat before he does and feeding him in different places every day
- marking/rewarding good behavior that we catch him doing (good down, good crate, good sit, etc.)
- only letting him have chews in his bed or his crate
- moving his crate into a new room every 30 days until he's been in every room
- not allowed on furniture unless a person is also on it
- don't feed at the exact same time every day
- no bed (bummer...)

This also seems pretty reasonable! Next class she's going to put him one of their crates to see what progress we've made. We better get to work! We've only been really using his crate when we have to leave him alone (which really isn't that frequent considering all of the people we live with).

I really like working with Maestro. I taught him a couple of basic commands before we started class (sit, down, rollover, stay, paw), but I think this training will really help him grow into a stable, happy a dog. I really love this damn dog and I want him to have a good life because he brings me so much joy.



Now to play some Pokemon!!!!