Popination Altercation
a series of unhinged personal essays disguised as pub reviews. Today: Denver Beer Co.
Another Aurora rehearsal, another new (to me) beer hall. This time the rehearsal was at the John Hand / Firehouse Theatre space, which was also the Colorado Free University, which was being used as a rehearsal space until the previous productions were finished using Vintage.
I’d been to the John Hand Theatre before, but I don’t remember it having been in this area. Back then was more than a decade ago, in the heyday of my stage combat teaching at [UNIVERSITY NAME REDACTED]* and I and some members of the Stage Combat Club were performing in a night of assorted scenes from Shakespeare, on the theme of love and violence. We were doing the opening fight from Romeo & Juliet, and I was Tybalt. It was a cool thing to get to do, extracurricularly, and I know the guys were proud of their work, as well they should have been.
I’ve also worked at CFU itself back in the even farther ago day: it was when I was just about to graduate with my MFA in Writing & Poetics, and wanted to get my resume looking good enough to get into academia. I was a sweet summer child wanting to be a professor when she grew up. Sigh…
How the process of fight (and other, in this case) choreography works when I’m hired on for shows like this is the following;
I scribble (literally) my choreography down on the relevant pages of the script.
I come in and teach the moves to the actors. In these rehearsals, normally some glitches in my pre-planning come to light, and/or the actors have great ideas that come organically too, which I then incorporate into the final draft of the choreo. I’ll also usually name a Fight Captain here—that’s a member of the cast who has a little experience in the field, who can lead fight rehearsals while I’m gone, and can keep it going till performances start.Â
After this initial choreo rehearsal, I type up the revised choreography into more of a readable format, and share it with the director, stage manager, and fight captain.
After this, I normally don’t go back to rehearsal till a later runthrough, and that’s it.
So this choreo-teaching rehearsal was what I was there to do this last time, and during same, I overcame both a choreography issue as well as an imposter syndrome problem. I won’t go into the latter in detail—I feel like describing such things in a public forum jinxes me and, like, calls me out. Like, I feel as though giving details makes everyone realize I’m the impostor of the syndrome, in a messed up way. Suffice to say I’m working on it, and it’s absolutely an abuse survivor kneejerk reaction. But I CBTed myself right out of it, in my own head, and I’m proud of myself. I’ve never been to real therapy, and so I do tend to celebrate the times when I can successfully therapize myself out of a mode that’s not helping anyone or anything. Gen X (and warrior) pride. I’m a bask in that for a minute.
But the choreography problem? That was a fun conundrum, though I personally wished I’d fixed it faster than I did. But anyway—the deal was: a punch is thrown at one character, but another character leaps in between and gets the punch in the face. I had the hardest time getting the stunt to work with it looking good but also not being too small a space between the actors’ fist and face, respectively. You know: the golden dual rule of stage combat: Stay Safe, and Look Awesome. I ended up angling it more and having the punch aimed at a different place, and it ended up looking great. Whew! Now it’s up to them to rehearse the heck out of it.
But again, a rehearsal isn’t a pub!
I did the same thing I described last week, where I looked at the map and checked what potentials for Popination existed near the rehearsal area on this day. I found Denver Beer Co., and ambled on over there after I was done with the arrangement of the clinches and the punches and the smooches with the Hombres.*
*If you visit that link, you’ll see what I did there.Â
I again had some trouble finding the front door. What is it with beer halls and and confusing entrances? While I’m asking, what is it with Aurora (and adjacent) and giant beer halls? I’m not necessarily complaining but. Weird. Or is it? Maybe I’m the one that’s weird. Anyway, once inside, it did echo the last week’s beer hall, though it was not self-serve, and it was, though large and spacious and set up with long picnic tables, probably about half the size. I sat at the bar which is normally my comfort zone even in unfamiliar territory. Maybe that seating helps me to feel more at home. Maybe it’s a thigmotaxis thing.
As I sat Musing over my IPA, a gloriously punked-out human of indeterminate gender came in and sat down right next to me, scrolling on their phone. I found myself marveling at their lovely sartorial display: mohawk hair dyed a bright color, classic black leather jacket with adornments of spikes and chains, tight black jeans, tall boots, piercings over most of the face. In a place like the Crypt or even DV8, I wouldn’t have looked twice, but the big crowd here was more of a khakis and polos or cargo shorts type. I wasn’t even particularly Gothed out myself, being more dressed for yoga than clubbing, but I do wonder if the pretty punk fae sat near me for a sense of comfort themselves. I did have my elaborately inked tattoo sleeve well on display, and my hair is still dyed black with a high undercut buzzed underneath. Maybe they sensed a kindred soul. We didn’t chat or anything, just sat companionably doing tasks on our phones.
I only had a couple pints at Denver Beer Co., as I was off to a third event after that—I was meeting my partner at one of his old business-consulting friends’ homes for his 50th birthday party. When I arrived, there was a huge heated party tent in his back yard, not that much smaller than the patio at the place I just was, caterers wandering smiling around and offering hors d’oeuvres on platters, weaving amid the well dressed guests. Nobody was in, like, formal wear or anything, but the consulting crowd is a somewhat posh bunch. I guess ‘posh’ really isn’t the right term—we’re not talking nobility, just people that make a high salary and can do things like buy houses and pay for their kids’ college. So there I jaunted, looking like your favorite drama teacher in yoga pants and a flowing cardigan, rolled mat under my arm, long braid down my back. I felt like Columbo at Dr. Mayfield’s fancy party for a minute, until I was able to take a breath, find my finely dressed partner, and get a second (or is that a third?) wind.
Here I was again, both putting on the party charisma (the charisma switch, remember?), and a tiny bit of my brain inside reserved to marveling yet again at my always-evolving ability to hobnob with those of a different class. Of a higher one, specifically. There were interesting people there, too, once I asserted my right to be there and chilled out for a minute and actually talked to them. And I even ran into a woman I’d worked with at Front Range Community College—she recognized me, I hadn’t recognized her till we talked. There was the amiable kid of the birthday celebrant: a 17 year old college freshman in Economics, well spoken and easy in his skin, amiable and able to engage in conversation with the adults around him. We were impressed by the skinny, shaggy haired, spotty kid who yet had a strong handshake, good eye contact, and an easy, adult, genial way of conversing. The kids are all right. Or at least this one is…
More in the continued saga of Couple Goals happened there too: there was a young couple who immediately attached to us and asked us mentory questions and hung out with us during the dinner part of the party, including this zinger: What was our favorite decade of life? (Meaning, like: did we enjoy our 20s, 30s, 40s more? We’re both just newly in our 50s so we can’t judge this decade yet, but.) What would you say? I wasn’t sure how to answer that, actually: I had wonderful and awful things happen to me in my 20s, 30s, and 40s. If pressed, I might pick my 40s but I don’t know. I’m liking my 50s so far better than all those, even counting the arthritis/piriformis pains and the menopause madness. Overall happiness? I’m there. I think. Then again, I’m only a year in, so we’ll save judgment till I turn 60 (knock on wood)…Â
In a big open space full of people, their anonymous children, and lots of beer, it’s impossible to feel alone. In a backyard tent, full of strangers of a certain stature, who are asking about yourself? A little more so. It’s much more of a performance situation, at any rate, even more than my theatrical task had been that day. Not that that’s necessarily all bad, but the experience sapped my energy, similarly but different. I find that interesting.