I'm truly disappointed

Tonight, while attending the mayoral debate hosted by City Watch, I also engaged in some "back and forth" with mayoral candidate Robert Falcon-Oulette. Up to this point, I have been very much impressed by his ideas, approach, and poise. Unfortunately tonight I was disappointed. Not by his performance in the debate - that was impressive - but by the behaviour of his team in responding to and managing social media.

As you may know, there has been some hullabaloo over the City Firefighters endorsing Judy WL. While this has been a practice for as long as I can remember (firefighters unions endorsing candidates) I certainly value the questioning of this support. It is an extremely valid question. Mr Forrester, president of the union, responded in an inappropriate manner, and Dan Lett of the free press published these comments. None of this is okay.

Neither is attributing statements to a candidate that they did not make. I saw it come across Dr Falcon-Oulette's twitter that Judy had made a statement about him being a fringe candidate. Search as I may (and request links!) I could only find indication (in the previously linked article) that Mr Forrester had made such statements. I pointed this out, and received only circular comments in response, including those from Dr Falcon Oulette's twitter page. I know for a fact these statements were not his own; he was sitting in front of me at a debate, with only a pen and notebook in front of him. They were that of his team, which is worrisome.

The tone of these posts was less than amicable, and definitely unprofessional. Unprovoked, as many of my tweets for the evening highlighted Dr Falcon-Oulette's strengths, and were re-tweeted by the candidate's team.

Within 2 hours, the inappropriate responses were deleted. No comment to myself. And a good handful of supporters now running with incorrect assumptions.

I'm all for truth and transparency. 100%. But that is a two-way street. You can't make unfounded accusations, respond in a snarky manner, and then delete it. Once something is on the internet, it is there forever.

I think that both Judy and Robert are fantastic candidates. I wish there was a way to merge them into the super candidate. As my 10 year old stated during the debate, if we could, we would have one fantastic city.

Lets' not devolve into inaccuracy and mud slinging, please. Rise above it. RFL needs to reign in his social media team, and yes, Judy's team should make a statement about the inappropriate comments from the firefighters. Then lets get back to things that matter - how to make a better city.

We're sill friends...

Today's dramaturgy class was great. We were learning about the side of the dramaturg's job that focuses on understanding classical texts, either to defend a decision to portray them in a way (EG as a tragedy) and in terms of managing the length, making informed cuts to the script to meet a production's length requirements.

This was lots of fun. Each group had to construct an argument either to show the play as closer to tragedy as Aristotlte describes it, or to another form; for Malfi it was a Melodrama, and for Measure it was comedy. It was really informative to have to craft an argument to support a side, even when you may not necessarily agree with that position as it pertains to the play. We got a bit snippy with one another in the spirit of debate as well.

Prior to that we rehearsed Duchess. My group has been assigned act 3 scenes 1 and 2, so one of the most juicy scenes in the play, where the duchess is found out by ferdinand. Once again I have been cast as the duchess, which makes me quite happy, as I find her to be a completely fascinating character. We have crafted a very still, frightening scene which clearly illustrates her movement from trying to cover up what is perceived to be her indiscretion, and "coming clean" so to speak. I am really excited about this scene, and hope we can bring something that really surprises and moves the class and Tom.

And you know we are really down to business when I'm reading Nietzsche on the train at 11:30pm. Preparing for my Theorizing assignment which involves writing a questionnaire to engage theoretically with one of the performances we have seen. We don't need to answer the questions yet, but rather do need to provide a bibliography that will support answering the questions....and then for our final assessment in this class will be a questionnaire engaging with two of the performances, which we then need to answer. It is an intereting mix of essay writing, and preparation for the idea that we'll likely one day be in a position to be creating exam or essay questions ourselves. That class has a lot that is structured to position us as tutors and educators, which is exciting. And terrifying.

A Lusty Widow

Began with rehearsals on Act 2 of Duchess of Malfi today. I am playing The Duchess, in her expectant but secretive state in scene 2 of the act. The rehearsal was bumpy, working with so large a group (and 3 directors!) but overall we managed to develop a good sense of what Webster is intending and what is going on, along with the blocking. I must admit, The Duchess is quite fun to play, particularly in this scene. As a young Duchess (for she is still quite young) she has a feeling of entitlement, and also of defiance against those who want to restrain her or fit her into a mould. More rehearsals Tuesday, then presentation.

Then our first dramaturgy class with Paul Sirett. Such fun! We began with looking at the function of dramaturgs as they relate to new plays. We read several new short plays as "readers" for a literary department of a company, then debated the merits of each as something potential for our fictional company to pursue and potentially produce. It was interesting to hear what people took from the various plays, and the debate over some got fairly intense. Mountain of homework for this class (we only have 4 total, so have to jam it in!) including writing an External Report to the Literary Department on one of the plays.

As well, I have taken on a project (along with two classmates) to direct a Medieval Latin play for King's College with their MA students. The production takes place in April 2012.

image: Helen Mirren as The Duchess of Malfi (1981)