Subscribe To This Site
Precious Chong’s Blog January 16th
Precious Chong and Collaboration I met with a director about working on a new one-man show. We met at the Second Cup across from Downward Dog. I work with him at my Joe job but Wes worked with him on a show and said he was a really good director. I like to collaborate. I did a solo show a couple of years back and I’ve been writing and thinking of doing something new. The director I usually work with, Michael Kearns, is in Los Angeles. We worked together on my show for two years. So by the end we had great artistic shorthand. It’s different though being here in Toronto. I feel like I’m starting from scratch, which on a good day feels like a clean slate, but right now feels daunting, overwhelming, impossible. I’m filled with doubt. Precious Chong and what she writes I usually write stuff from my life. Autobiographical work. I don’t know if it’s laziness or compulsion or exhibitionism. It’s just what I’ve done. So the new director asks me “Why do you write autobiographically?” I couldn’t really give a good answer. I’m a narcissist. I’m obsessed with my navel. I’m a shy exhibitionist. The truth always seems more extraordinary than fiction. But now I’m writing about all that’s happened between Wes and I these past two years and well, it’s not a solo show anymore. Also it’s difficult for Wes because I’m saying all this stuff about our private life. “At least now you’re not writing about me” my mom joked at my last reading. Okay what am I really saying? I was disappointed that the guy I met with wasn’t more dazzled by my work. I was looking for approval or permission, something which I know is a total set up and not real. I’m an artist. I make art. Not everyone’s going to like it right? I guess there’s this part of me that still wants to please. Ugh. I’m afraid. The director had some good suggestions. I need to just not get neurotic and take what was good and move forward. Precious Chong and her doubts Ah but the voices in my head…It’s horrible. When I get like this. I’m a fraud, a phony, a fake, a dilettante. I think I had a dream the other night about this. “Use your imagination!” someone in my dream said. But underneath all of this is the fact that it is scary material to look at. Wes and I are getting along now better than we have in a long time and to revisit some of this stuff seems potentially dangerous. I’m homesick. I feel like a stranger in a strange land. I was at an audition for McCain’s Smoothees and this girl was talking about curling. Curling? And I don’t mean curling her hair. You know that commercial where the woman is shopping and pushing the cart and all of a sudden these two woman start acting like she’s curling and they brush and sweep in front of the cart. The woman in the commercial was there and the other woman was saying how funny the commercial was and how she curls and blah blah blah. They all seemed to know each other and I felt left out. It’s like high school. My almost two year-old son, Jack has a new word “scary”. Sometimes he roars like a lion and then gets scared by his own voice and says “scary”. It’s hilarious. I think so anyway. Scary. Scary. Return from Precious Chong's Blog to WILDsound Filmmaking Feedback Events home page
|
