My Fresh New Job

Dear Diary,

I hate The Lemmings Associated Weekly, our high school paper. The "theatre" critic, this 10th year senior named Neil Weaver, came to see READAPTATION last weekend and his review came out today. God, he must be dense. We weren't trying to satirize or cannibalize the works of screenwriter ANDY Kaufman. It was Charlie Kaufman who wrote ADAPTATION. Or maybe the public school system is really in worse shape than we have been lead to believe that they can't even hire a fact checker for a play that happened at their own school. Just ask. Besides, it's not like we don't say "Charlie Kaufman" enough times in the play...jeez...

Maybe I'm dumb. Maybe Neil is trying to make meta-references, like he's trying to out-meta us. That 10th year senior doesn't know who he is dealing with. Diary, I am going to have a career change right now. I am now going to be a "Meta-Critic". I'm going to go see shows that the critics in this dummy highschool go to see, the same exact shows, and then read their reviews and write my own based on their reviews. Someone's gotta put these guys on notice and if it has to be me, Diary, then it has to be me. Besides, 've always taken to heart that Michael Jackson song, "Man in the Mirror." ("You gotta start with yourself/Shamon/Make that change!/Man in the Mirror!") Here's my first meta-review. Check it out, Diary, I think it rocks!

RE-ADAPTATION: STAGING JOHN MALKOVICH - THE META-REVIEW
by Neal Weaver and David Lee

This zany piece, written by Stephen Flores and Blake Goddard, based on Dominick [Dominic] Savio's story "The OC Harasser," attempts to satirize (or cannibalize?) [The attempt is both, though perhaps the satirical leanings of the show falls a little flat] the works of screenwriter Andy Kaufman by re-telling the story of Adaptation in the fractured style of Being John Malkovich [This is a fascinating read, Mr. Weaver. You may be stretching here by locating our "historical" forebear in comic Andy Kaufman, who often had a contentious, and often hilarious, relationship with reality and hyperreality. He was certainly a postmodern comic, but in actual fact, it's Charlie Kaufman who collaborated with Spike Jonze on those two projects. So this result of bad fact checking actually adds an interesting level of meaning. Also, you have it backwards - it should be "retelling the story of Being John Malkovich in the fractured style of Adaptation. The problem is, however, is that Adaptation is not particularly fractured. That was our invention, rather, not invention as in an "invention" but invention more as new layer on top of these two works]. However, due to all the homage and badinage [I love that word. Thanks!], the only original element (the story of the Orange Country harasser) gets lost in the shuffle [Surely. In Adaptation did you have the same problem where the story of The Orchid Thief gets lost in the shuffle?]. We never learn the precise nature of the harassment, though it does seem to have so traumatized Stephen Flores (played by Stephen Flores), that he was driven to create an alter-ego named Dominick Savio - the writer of the source material, played by Michael Rex [The precise nature of the harassment isn't the point. We could argue whether or not it is important to learn the precise nature of the harassment, but that would be an irrelevant point since the real story of "The OC Harasser" is how Dominic/Stephen has breaks the vicious cycle of cyclical maladaptive pattern in the postmodern world]. There's a perfunctory plot about an actress (Jen Martino) who stirs up an insurrection to take over the theater, but it peters out [Without this perfunctory plot, which is a dramatization of what happened in OC, there would be no reason for Act II. In light of this, is it still perfunctory? And it can only peter out if you consider Act II completely detached from Act I]. The play is strategically confusing, a tactic borne out by the playfully useless Dadaist program [I think a Dadaist program would have included entries like "poop thief" and the like. We would rather think that our program is a "playfully useless" annotation of the script]: The prologue appears as the second scene in Act 2, followed by scenes 3, 7 and 11 [How does this help explicate the show?]. Direction is by Savio and David Lee (who is played by Asian-American actor D.W. Sweet, who also appears as Elvis Presley, Audrey Hepburn and an ancient Peruvian) [This is probably the closest thing to fact in your review, though I actually think 'Bolivian' is more factually accurate]. A comically slapdash dance number at the end has little to do with previous action, but seems to please the audience [But did it please YOU? Because {singing}, "we wanna please you like we should"]. Split.Id Theater at the Complex, 6470 Santa Monica Blvd., Hlywd.; Sun., 7:30 p.m.; thru Aug. 29. (323) 462-2662. Written 08/26/2004 (Neal Weaver/David Lee)

Diary, you are always so good to listen to me when I rant. That Neal Weaver and Lemmings Associated Weekly can eat it, for all I care!

Yours, in the mirror,
David